Pandemic shows up digital divide – The Australian Financial Review

It so happens that BCG holds up Telstra, which is one of its clients, as a role model for how companies can transform their businesses through radically simplifying products, improving the digital experience of customers and installing a new technology stack.
“We are now rolling out functionality and capability at a material scale which is making a big difference,” Penn says.
“A lot of that has enabled us to response to COVID very effectively. In a way, we are slightly fortunate that our digitisation program is landing at this time because things like the MyTelstra app, which we just relaunched, already has had 4 million downloads.”
The new app allows Telstra to use asynchronous messaging to handle customer inquiries. This sort of messaging, which is used by Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, doesnt require constant connectivity to keep the conversation active.
Consumer behaviour has changed
Penn says that several aspects of the T2022 transformation plan are being implemented ahead of schedule including the ambitious target of reducing call centre traffic from 36 million calls a year to 12 million.
COVID has disrupted Telstra’s ability to service customers because it forced the shut down of its call centres in India and the Philippines. Penn apologised for delays caused by this.
But he says this has forced the company to move a lot of its service to Australian call centres or online. The asynchronous messaging through the MyTelstra app will help to alleviate the pressure on call centres.
He says COVID has not only changed consumer behaviour it has opened the way for changes in the way people interact with a range of services because of regulatory change.
For example, Telstra Health, which is the largest Australian-based provider of software for healthcare providers, has struggled for years to get traction with tele-medicine.
Patients and general practitioners were reluctant to meet via video. Penn says the key reason it never gained traction was because a video consultation did not qualify for the Medicare rebate.
But COVID meant restrictions were lifted and patients can now claim the Medicare rebate when undertaking a video consultation. To capitalise on this Telstra Health has signed a deal with pharmacy chain Priceline.
Penn says Priceline customers can come into a pharmacy and if they don’t have a prescription they can have a medical consultation on the spot via video with a doctor who could then issue a prescription that could be filled immediately.
Faster account activation
Telstra, which is spending $1.5 billion on its digital transformation, is moving ahead with key milestones in its transformation including shifting all its post-paid mobile plans on to a new technology platform. This has cut account activation from 20 minutes to two minutes.
Mohr from BCG says research by his firm shows that digital leaders outperform their peers in key areas including cost efficiency, product quality, customer satisfaction and time to market.
He says a digital leader is defined as a company that combines its human and technological capabilities.
These companies have both business and IT projects that are agile, they invest more than 15 per cent of operating expenditure in technology and data analytics and they transform their core processes to digital.
Companies that fit this definition are focused on having staff with digital profiles.
Penn told the Trans-Tasman Business Circle Australia needs to expand its digital skills. Next week it will announce a new university partnership.
The BCG research shows Australia is well placed to leap forward in digital because cloud infrastructure and services are mature.
Also, consumers are digitally literate as shown by the fact we rank fourth in smartphone penetration and ninth in mobile broadband speed.
This leadership in mobile will be maintained, according to Penn. He says Telstra’s 5G roll out is running ahead of schedule. It had planned to connect 35 regional towns and cities by June 30 to 5G and it has actually reached 50.

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