2020 – new opportunities in the middle of the crisis

2020 – what a year! For Deutsche Telekom, for me, for all of us. The effects of the pandemic have hit the economy hard. Supply chains have collapsed worldwide, production and processes have been delayed, IoT projects have been put on hold. The way we work, the way we communicate, our entire daily lives, have been severely affected from spring onwards. When I joined Deutsche Telekom in 2019, I wouldn’t have thought I’d be working in a world where we only communicate virtually. To be honest, at first all challenges ahead of our company felt very demanding – namely to combine the IoT expertise of Deutsche Telekom and T-Systems in a new organization. How would we manage this transformation based only on virtual exchanges? But I learned that the more you trust your team, the more motivated they become, and the more effectively they work. 

A new start with combined strengths

With that in mind, we managed to bundle all the group's IoT activities into the newly created DT IoT. We built the new business on the mission that we won't stop until everything is connected. Our goal is to become a leading global orchestrator in the worldwide IoT ecosystem. We have already started a lot of initiatives to achieve this ambitious goal. Our new IoT Hub is the center of our IoT universe. It orchestrates networks, clouds, devices, protocols, and applications in a central, managed infrastructure. The IoT Hub will bring all stakeholders together in a unique infrastructure. The most important element is to make the access and operation of an increasingly heterogeneous IoT ecosystem as simple and manageable as possible. Transparent, with clear standards and open interfaces.

And with the IoT Creators we built an international team of people who are passionate about interacting with those who make IoT solutions work – be it software or hardware developers, geeks or entrepreneurs! We want to learn from the world outside DT IoT and test our new technologies, features and market approach. Our overarching aim is to make it easier for customers to embrace the Internet of Things. We’ll take care of all the technology, so our customers can concentrate on their business. We achieve all of this together with our technology and sales partners.

 A crazy year also called for events that were different than before. I've probably never experienced a year in which I was part of so many completely virtual keynotes, podcasts and panel discussions. Just to name a few in case you’ve missed them: Digital X , 5G Things Event, The IoT Podcast and the Industry of Things World.

Strengthened by the crisis

Looking back at what I learned from the crisis, it is possible to run a sizeable business from afar. And with IoT, you can continue to oversee all your processes. The Internet of Things provides the opportunity to make supply chains transparent and resilient through tracking. To maintain machines remotely to prevent breakdowns. To reduce operational costs through automation. And finally, to make production more sustainable and thus more future-proof. The new 5G mobile communications standard will accelerate all of this. Thanks to its low latency and high bandwidths, 5G will make future scenarios, such as autonomous driving and smart cities, real possibilities. As I see it, the goal for 2021 should be: connect, digitize, get ahead and emerge stronger from the crisis.

In addition, I will take some personal learnings into the new year. Being a good employer means that you need to keep your people happy and focused. We need to become more flexible when it comes to working hours and to react to our people’s specific requirements. If employees have a good work life balance, they will be happier, more driven and ultimately create more value. In 2020 I had to learn to lead, work, and take part in events in a fully digital way from a distance. In the future, we have to find a good balance between working in person and working digitally. But as there will almost certainly be less traveling, I’m looking forward to continuing to personally put my kids to bed more often and I’m sure that some of you will take advantage of the newly gained flexibility, too. Combining business and private life more easily is something I definitely don’t want to miss in 2021.