INTHEBLACK February 2023 - Magazine - Page 18
MEMBER PROFILE
CPA Australia, INTHEBLACK – Andrew Chanmugam FCPA
People before technology: How to succeed at digital transformation
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Working at Telstra in the early 2000s,
not long after graduating from university,
Chanmugam recognised that the emerging
digital transformation would never thrive unless
it solved people’s problems or improved their
lives. The new tech had to serve a purpose,
and it needed to be seamless and easy.
“The people experience has to translate
to your customer experience,” he adds.
“The innovation, the creativity, the services
and products you create – they are what
your customers experience. It works all
the way down the line. To me it’s all
the same, whether you’re in banking,
insurance or telecommunications.”
The way forward was to offer customers
an experience they immediately felt they
could not do without. Not the shock of
the new, but the delight of innovation.
Chanmugam’s digital expertise with
Telstra’s growing pay TV business made
him a virtual shoo-in for his next job.
When he became commercial manager
at Fox Sports, sport was just going digital,
but even then, things were changing fast.
18 INTHEBLACK February 2023
Back then, it was about bringing so-called “rich
multimedia services” from TV into the newer
mediums of smartphones, tablets and personal
computers. Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android
smartphones were constantly evolving. This was
a vastly different world, Chanmugam realised,
even if many of the same principles applied.
Consumers wanted animated content at their
fingertips. “Digital” now meant “portable”.
“Fox Sports had an outstanding catalogue of
broadcast rights and was, by 2008, the top television
sporting franchise in Australia,” he recalls. “It
was a serious opportunity to monetise what was
once a TV platform into a digital media space.”
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
Chanmugam rates his next tenure, as general
manager at Vodafone between 2011 and 2017
as formative, because it showed how technology
plays a key role in the customer experience.
“At the time I arrived, we had lost over a
million customers,” he says.
“It was very clear to everybody where we
played in the market and what we had to do to
get back on top.”