Releasing potential to be more digital – but with people at the centre…

We need to become more digital ourselves in order to help our customers to grow in a digital world. Our ambition is to be the digital operator for Poland. We are the first company in the Orange Group to appoint a Chief Digital Officer. The new structure is our competence hub, working for and with all business lines and operations. We have strong assets and experiences that we can build on. For example, our fully digital offer Flex, which is a unique product on the Polish market; and voicebot Max, which allows customers to get support on simple topics.

Designing Max we have enhanced customer care using big data (BD) and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions. Big data will allow us to better position and tailor specific offers for specific customers, translating, for example, into increased loyalty. Big data and AI can be used in network planning and management. Employing AI for network diagnostics can help us prevent failures based on analysis of data about the network’s behaviour. It can support investment processes, by helping us recommend specific locations for rollout based on actual traffic and customer needs.

We want to go to the market with those solutions and further monetise the potential that big data and AI contain.

Our ambition is that by end of 2024 one out of every four sales are made through online channels, and three out of every four customer-care contacts happen through digital. This is a major shift towards efficiency: automating routine tasks, making customer contact with Orange easier, better and more suited to our customers’ needs – wherever they are, whenever they want.

At the same time, we understand that not all customers will want to go online with all of their business with Orange. That is why we believe in omnichannel – making it easy to start your process online, and complete it on the phone or in the store, directly supported by another human being. Because we understand that relationships are based on empathy and companionship – and you cannot simulate that with AI. This need for human contact is another thing that we saw vividly during COVID-19 pandemic. So, we want to be digital but we know that there is no digital without people at the centre.

To release our potential we also need to continue to simplify and focus on building strong foundations for the future. We need to make room for transformation. This includes phasing out older access technologies that we will gradually be replacing: 3G, by the end of 2024, and copper.

They will be replaced by next-generation mobile and fixed networks, which will improve efficiency and curb the cost of legacy systems. This also applies to our real estate portfolio. We will continue our strategy in that area.