The linked story speaks for itself ... Telkom Indonesia has the wisdom and courage to embark on helping to facilitate innovation - ideas from both inside and out of telecom.
https://www.techinasia.com/indonesia-telkom-ddb-accelerator-startups/
This story resonate personally for several reasons. Besides the obvious personal interest in innovation, the first big chapter of my career was not only in telecom, but in a incubator with telecom. Here's the old war story:
Beginning in the early 1980s, my career dovetailed with AT&T's journey through deregulation. January 1, 1984 was an early milestone - 'Divestiture' where AT&T divested all 22 of the 'local' telephone companies into 7 new regional 'Baby Bell' behemoths ... that then kept evolving over the ensuing decades after the 1984 Divestiture:
1) Ameritech [umbrellaing Indiana Bell, Ohio Bell, Illinois Bell, Michigan Bell & Wisconsin Bell], later to be acquired by SBC (formally named Southwestern Bell in 1999),
2) Bell Atlantic [umbrellaing New Jersey Bell, Bell of Pennsylvania, Diamond State Telephone and Chesapeake & Potomac Telecom], later to merge with GTE in 2000 and become Verizon,
3) Bell South [umbrellaing Southern Bell {where I started my AT&T career} and Southcentral Bell], later to be acquired by [the new, Texas based] at&t in 2006.
4) NYNEX [umbrellaing New York Telephone and New England Telephone], later to merge with Bell Atlantic in 1997 and take the Bell Atlantic name,
5) Pacific Telesis/PacTel [umbrellaing Pacific Bell and Nevada Bell], later acquired by SBC (formally named Southwestern Bell) in 1997,
6) Southwestern Bell (later referred to as SBC, in 1984 the biggest of AT&T's 22 Bell Operating companies but in 1984 the smallest of the 7 newly created Regional Bell Operating Companies [RBOCs] as it only included 1 Bell Operating Company - Southwestern Bell Telephone, which later acquired PacTel in 1996, then acquired AT&T in 2005 and rebranding as 'at&t', then acquired BellSouth which included Cingular Wireless in 2006.
7) USWest [umbrellaing Mountain States Telephone & Telegraph, Northwestern Bell and Pacific Northwest Bell], later merged with Qwest Communications in 2000, took on the Qwest name, then merged with CenturyLink then took the CenturyLink brand.
As AT&T rocked and heaved through the post divestiture 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s, competitor MCI was causing sleepless nights at AT&T headquarters. MCI was purchased by Worldcom in 1998, then Worldcom's (apparent) financial performance put increasing pressure on AT&T's leadership to achieve comparable financial performance.
The thinking going into the 1984 Divestiture was that the Bell Operating Companies were the drag on AT&T's growth. AT&T's network was viewed as the crown jewels, along with booming technology on the hardware side with the old Western Electric, then acquired NCR. However, into the late 1990s and early 2000's the Regional Bell Operating were merging and growing as they owned what was really the invaluable asset - a direct billing relationship with tens of millions of households. AT&T kept reorganizing in an aim to better manage growth, dividing into about a dozen and a half business units, each evolving to having their own (private, internal) P&Ls. This approach influenced thinking to continually re-rank BUs includig the decision to unload the hardware business (which became Lucent initially before that company split into Avaya, then was acquired).
The thinking going into the 1984 Divestiture was that the Bell Operating Companies were the drag on AT&T's growth. AT&T's network was viewed as the crown jewels, along with booming technology on the hardware side with the old Western Electric, then acquired NCR. However, into the late 1990s and early 2000's the Regional Bell Operating were merging and growing as they owned what was really the invaluable asset - a direct billing relationship with tens of millions of households. AT&T kept reorganizing in an aim to better manage growth, dividing into about a dozen and a half business units, each evolving to having their own (private, internal) P&Ls. This approach influenced thinking to continually re-rank BUs includig the decision to unload the hardware business (which became Lucent initially before that company split into Avaya, then was acquired).
Worldcom financial pressures were commoditizing AT&T's network - the assets thought to be their crown jewels. The Chairman at the 1984 Divestiture - Charlie Brown - had retired shortly thereafter. In 1986, COO Jim Olsen became CEO (Olsen began his career working in manholes installing telecom services). However, in 1988 Olsen died of cancer, then was replaced by Robert Allen, then President. CEO Allen served until 1997 until missteps caused the AT&T Board to oust him and bring in outsider Michael Armstrong as CEO.
As Armstrong required AT&T business units to cut to bone, then cut into bone (as AT&T was chasing Worldcom - which at the time was unknowingly a ghost / financial fraud), one of the
directives Armstrong imposed on all AT&T business units was to stop all innovation within business units. Instead, working with then AT&T Labs President Dave Nagel, a newly created centralized corporate incubator was established in early 2001 with AT&T Labs called 'eAT&T'. Any new potential solutions that had projected out-year break-even had to be directed to this new corporate incubator for consideration and approval into the eAT&T incubator organization. eAT&T would establish start-up governance leadership per approved incubator initiative, then provide then the responsibility of taking their respective incubator to break-even. Once operating in the black, the incubator would migrate to a business unit for ongoing life cycle management.
Leading my "ClickAT&T" incubator for multi-phased carrier billing of eCommerce (across AT&T's billing assets spanning wireline billing, wireless billing, ISP billing, prepaid billing, cable billing, etc.) I successfully navagated leadership scrutiny to earn 1 of just 20 corporate incubator slots in the new eAT&T. Mine became 1 of just 2 out of those 20 to successfully make it to market and scale, beginning with Phase 1 AT&T PrePaid WebCents thanks to breakthrough engagements to closing deals I did with 3rd party value added service providers including marquee giants WDIG (Walt Disney Internet Group) for Disney Toontown & Disney Blast games - with distribution deals at Wal-Mart and other major retailers; Sony for Sony's MMP Everquest; RealNetworks' Rhapsody Music; as well as Vindigo's location service; Atom Shockwave's various online games, along with creative multi-media ecosystem solsutions with Graceland, BMG Music and others. Unfortunately, by late 2001 (about 10 months after the eAT&T incubator organization was started) AT&T President Dave Nagel jumped to Apple and the replacement AT&T Labs President Hossein Eslambolchi [along with Armstrong], withing 2 months killed eAT&T (coinciding with me following the initiative to AT&T Consumer where it launched and scaled per above).
(Example of Pre AT&T Labs collateral (one of several) from successful ClickAT&T Beta in AT&T Business' vCommerce business unit ... before ClickAT&T's resurrection in AT&T Labs' eAT&T Incubator, then Phase 1 launch in AT&T Consumer's PrePaid business unit.)
Decision by AT&T's leadership to chase the (not known at the time) fraudulent Worldcom, weakened AT&T so significantly that by 2005, AT&T was acquired by SBC - the smallest of the 7 RBOCs that AT&T dumped/divested 21 years earlier.
A challenge in big corporates is that often decision makers have a bias that expects home runs fast. Granted, their bias is influenced by investor and market pressures that want optimal returns as fast as possible. That said, I recall yeas ago when there was more balance in the investment community in terms of a mix of short and long term ... but more recent decades have seen a pull toward primarily the shorter term, which then of course influences how leadership in measured and rewarded, which of course puts increased pressure on innovation that takes time. Fast forward about a decade and carrier billing of eCommerce is one of the few boom industries of the Great Recession Era with impressive firms including ArpuPlus, Boku, Bango, Centili, Danal Inc./BillToMobile, Dimoco, Fortumo, ipayy-Verse, Mobile Embrace, NeoMobile, SLA Mobile and others - racing to make a ubiquitous global footprint of ramping carrier billing of eCommerce, now forecast to bring $12B in revenues to telecom. One of many challenges of the innovator's dilemma.
A challenge in big corporates is that often decision makers have a bias that expects home runs fast. Granted, their bias is influenced by investor and market pressures that want optimal returns as fast as possible. That said, I recall yeas ago when there was more balance in the investment community in terms of a mix of short and long term ... but more recent decades have seen a pull toward primarily the shorter term, which then of course influences how leadership in measured and rewarded, which of course puts increased pressure on innovation that takes time. Fast forward about a decade and carrier billing of eCommerce is one of the few boom industries of the Great Recession Era with impressive firms including ArpuPlus, Boku, Bango, Centili, Danal Inc./BillToMobile, Dimoco, Fortumo, ipayy-Verse, Mobile Embrace, NeoMobile, SLA Mobile and others - racing to make a ubiquitous global footprint of ramping carrier billing of eCommerce, now forecast to bring $12B in revenues to telecom. One of many challenges of the innovator's dilemma.
Again, kudos and all the best to Telkom Indonesia's DDB Accelerator. May they become a beacon of success that influences others to replicate their approach.
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