Silvija Seres: Hello and welcome to Lorn. My name is Silvija Seres and this is a podcast in collaboration with Telenor. Our topic today is going to be digital product development and business innovation on top of digital infrastructures I guess. And my guest is Swati Sharma head of digital product development for the group services innovation and projects in Telenor Norway. Welcome Swati.

Swati Sharma: Hi.

Silvija: We're going to talk about what you do and why you do it. But before we do that I was hoping you could tell us a little bit about who you are and what drives you.

SWS : Right. So my name is Swati and you said where I work I'm basically heading a group of digital products focused on families. What drives me? I would say I like solving problems. I think that's the most fun part of the job. And then it requires a combination of technology and business and understanding the user needs.

Silvija: Very cool. So you studied in India and then you came to Norway and tell us a little bit more about your personal story.

Swati: Sure. So yes I started with the technology in India. So I did my bachelors in engineering and then I did my MBA in India and that's where I met my now husband when we were there when I was working in London. We decided to get married and that was the point I moved here and then I did my second masters in Leadership Organizations Psychology and then Telenor. So here I am.

Silvija: Here you are and you're in Telenor Norway. So focusing on the Norwegian market for families basically or products for families.

Swati: So my division or my group focuses on the family area but Telenor we of course have the evidence focusing on other areas.

Silvija: What does it mean you're focusing on the family area?

Swati: So it means that we're interested in people who are living in the same household. Because the definition of family I think has changed quite a bit and we're trying to figure out the needs of this group and make the products which fulfill those needs.

Silvija: So for mobile communication but also digital services.

Swati: Yes definitely. Actually I would say our primary focus is on new services new digital services

Silvija: Which can be what?

Swati: Which can be quite wide. I think I can give you a bit of an example from what we are doing currently. So for example we have a product called Min Familie which tries to make your everyday life easier for the hectic life of parents and trying to organize and so on. And we have around 180000 users. So it's a combination of many different tiny apps that makes one app called Min Familie.

Silvija: So it's a scheduling tool?

Swati: It has a calendar. It has scheduling and it has shared shopping lists. It can let you know when your kid is leaving the school. So it has many different functionalities very much focused on the families.

Silvija: Very cool.

Swati: It's quite wide. But at the same time very much focused on one user group needs and the other one that we have is user collaboration with the NFF which is the Norges fotballforbund. So that is like the biggest sport in Norway right. So you have a lot of parents whose kids go and play football and a lot of people who have played football and so on. So there we have a collaboration in this application which helps you make it easier to know when the matches are happening when you need to drop off the kids. And we get like in the football season we get 250000 users coming to this application and also we link it to your Min Familie calendar so it's easier for everyone in the family to know who's in charge to drop off the kids who needs to pick them up is the kid being picked up. So yeah.

Silvija: So this works also because you have a lot. I mean I'm just trying to understand the unique position Telenor has in offering these kinds of things.

Swati: Of course

Silvija: You have access and people are using your communication services and you have a very big coverage in Norway. Why would a telecoms company have a unique advantage in offering digital services?

Swati: I would say that we have to go wider than just a telecom company. I think our goal is connecting people. So it's a part of that. And I would say that Telenor’s brand is something that is trusted by the family, it's trusted by the Norwegian market. So that's where I would say a unique advantage comes in that people know when they take a Telenor product that they can trust it that yes it's safe and it's something that they expect high quality from. So I think that's where our combination comes in instead of just the pure communication part.

Silvija: So you also have a product called TIA which has to do with voice assistance. Yeah what's that?

Swati: So Tia is actually a bit special, it's very new. It's a very early stage product so kind of talk a bit about where Tia came about. So currently I would say the next decade is going to be the decade of voice assistance. You have Apple, Google, Amazon fighting to be in your house to be the next voice assistance provider.

Silvija: Your smart home in a way

Swati: In the smartphone but especially the voice part they want to be selling you the device that comes from it's a home powered or Google Home or Alexa. However it's still unclear what the use cases look like. What would the consumers use it for?

A lot of people bought their Google Home on Christmas I believe and then it's still in there like it's not out of the packaging yet because they don't know how they would use it through Tia. What you want to do is to connect Telenor and partner services and create a Norwegian ecosystem which then connects to the different voice assistance. So that's what we are doing. So it's a first foray into the whole voice assistant area and it's quite exciting and we don't have all the answers currently but we're using new technologies and trying out different user needs and figuring out what would work.

Silvija: So is the challenge getting it to understand Norwegian or is the challenge getting you to understand Norwegian homes or Norwegian families.

Swati: I would say it's because it's a new area and it's a new technology so the challenges are very wide.

So you do have the Norwegian language challenge that certain words are said differently in different dialects. So you do have that part. You also have the part of what the user will use it for. Because people haven't historically used voice assistance so trying to figure out a user need that matches. I think that's also a challenge.

Silvija: I'm smiling because I'm thinking of this open door commercial that was you know this guy with a tooth surgery that can't open his door in his smart home.

Swati: Yes.

Silvija: But of course I think you're very right that we can't even begin to understand the ways that this will change the way we use our homes.

In a few years.

Swati: I completely agree. And then it is the third part of it where the technology itself, the natural language processing and all that is really evolving. So we have things like Google dialogue flow which are changing every month as well. So just the technology part about how it will understand the commands and what those commands will mean when you translate them into actionable items. That part is also completely new. So it's an extremely wide challenge area. That's why it's one.

Silvija: What do you use to get inspired on how to build this? Where would you go looking for ideas?

Swati: I think it's a mix. I think it's talking to people kind of what I would say is the user research part trying to understand how people are solving problems currently and are there ways we can make it shorter or faster. So I think that is that part also I think there are very interesting things happening in America and in Japan where a bit more ahead on the technology area so kind of seeing use cases and ideas from there also quite inspirational.

Silvija: I think what you said about learning from users is very important and I think very often we go into the trap of trying to wait until the users tell us what they want but they don't know. So what you said is understanding their new problems and then helping them solve new problems.

I think is really exciting because the way we live our lives changes the way our families work changes and figuring that out is there a cultural element there where you can see the Norwegian families better from the kind of inside-out outside- in

Swati: For me?

Silvija: for you in your job and are basically what I'm trying to open up is this whole idea of you being an immigrant and the advantages that gives you.

Swati: I think you do. I think whenever you are interacting with a new culture you might ask more questions because things which are obvious in that culture might not be obvious to you right. Why are we doing it this way and those things? So I think there is a benefit there that we did things...

I'm trying to think of any examples of this specific case because there are quite a few things which are very specific to Norway which would not be. So for example the love of nature for Norway. Norwegians and the part that they want to have their kids outside.

Yeah.

Silvija: And all the don'ts work.

Swati: Do not. And those are like things of course if you're here you take for granted that's how everyone is. That's not how the rest of the world is. So it's kind of interesting to figure out hey if we can do something in this area and make this part easier then that would be good. So I think there is some advantage there of being from outside the culture and asking those questions. So yeah.

Silvija: I think you're right. I think for me personally also being an immigrant in Norway is it's actually been an advantage to be able to admire things that Norwegians are particularly good at that they take for granted or believe that everybody does the same way

Swati: Everybody does that, yes I agree. And as you said, one of those practices which is like everyone will come together and work and it's not very obvious as you come from a foreign country that that's something that happens. But here everyone takes it for granted like of course you will show up and work.

Yes.

Silvija: You mentioned Tibber as a source of inspiration. It's a Norwegian company we actually haven't spoken to. What. What did they do?

Swati: So what the Tibber does is, the basic concept is it gives you the lowest price electricity and for let's say for example for charging your car what it means is when electricity prices are higher it can shut it down. And when the prices are negative then it can probably give back the electricity and then you earn money and that's like for me it's like understanding the use of me. I think that's really interesting what they're doing and they're making it in a very simple interface that people can use. And it requires working with a lot of like because you've had electricity. It's a legacy system but making it much more accessible. So I think that's really cool what they're doing there, especially with the rise of say

Silvija: The electric car.

Swati: I think that's going to be a huge market.

Silvija: Yeah I agree. And we notice it. It's a new problem. Basically we are charging our home appliances in their very intensive peak kind of way and helping us manage in a flexible way are our grids is going to be a super big opportunity for people.

Swati: Yeah I believe so I think it will be again as you say it's a new challenge because people in the electric cars like 10 years ago the market penetration is really low. So this is a completely new problem and with the new solutions.

Silvija: Exactly. What about international inspiration?

Swati: Yeah I mean I talked about a bit about the conferences and so I think one of the recent things I thought was kind of really cool is because we've had AI and a VR for a while.

And if you've been struggling I think as an industry to find use cases for it. But I was at the South by Southwest recently and then they were talking about a few use cases which were really interesting which were related to creating this ability that you really you can have a dialogue with someone who's no longer alive and you can have interactive dialogues you can talk to them and you can understand their experiences and what it was like so maybe your great great grandfather. And also people who have been through world events and I think that's such a good combination of very new technology and a very good user needs. Like you always wanted to know what if you didn't have good ways to keep that together some I think that's like for me it was really inspirational to have that combination come together.

Silvija: My thing with VR was that I was always very skeptical of it because I was saying you know I don't want it, I don't like it. And then somebody forced me to use Google Tilde brush.

Swati: Right.

Silvija: A friend. Yeah. And within 30 seconds I gave myself a claustrophobic attack. I painted myself into a virtual corner and that's when it said click in my mind suddenly you know the penny hit the ground. I said Oh no I understand that this is such a powerful tool. You know that my brain shrinks up with no questions asked and rationally I didn't believe it until I tried it. And I think it's so important that we try some of these new things. Otherwise we won't know what's possible.

Swati: One of the places that is being used in and in this was some documentary. I was watching a Norwegian documentary which was talking about using it in health services.

So people who are when you're doing behavioral therapy. Right. And if somebody is traumatized by a particular place then they can do it in a safe confined in VR to be there and be more comfortable before they actually face the actual space. I think again that that's such a good combination of understanding the user's needs and with that technology. Extremely useful.

Silvija: Very cool. So if we can use VR to get my kids to make their beds or some such have a new family need for me. So we talked about Norway's seen from the inside out. What about the rest of the world.. Are we able to export any of this cool stuff that you're doing to other parts of Telenor?

Swati: Definitely I think some of our products are already in other countries. Not from my group but I think some markets are quite similar I would say. So it's an easy export I would say. We went to like Sweden and Denmark. I think this would work quite easily. And then I think for other markets we have to adopt it a bit. But I think it's quite nice to have a company as big as Telenor because then you can export the ideas no matter where they come from.

Silvija: I love the way that Telenor internationalizes this technology and now markets as well.

Do you have a little quote you would like to leave to our listeners as a parting gift?

Swati: Because you told me earlier so I do have a quote which is one of my records. It's actually from the movie The Martian. It basically says you solve one problem, you solve the next one and then the next. And if you solve enough problems you get to come home. I think any big problem starts at the first step. And that's why I really like that quote.

Silvija: I agree so much with you and I think sometimes you feel like you know it's always another problem and it's never. But that's actually how the world goes forward. And when you look back always the sum is so much bigger than what you realize if you really you know look how far we've come but every small step didn't seem like such a big thing.

Swati: Exactly and I think if we just look at the big problem then it becomes quite daunting to try to solve it. But if you just take one step then the next step becomes easier and then the next step

Silvija: I agree, we are very pragmatic problem solvers. We like that Swati. If people are to remember one thing from our conversation what would you like it to be?

Swati: Always know the user needs your solving them. I think that's the most important and the user comes first.

Silvija: And on small things they don't need.

Swati: Yes yes

Silvija: Swati Sharma the director or head of digital product development in Services Innovation and projects in Telenor Norway. Thank you so much for coming here and inspiring us about our digital future.

Swati: Thank you.

Silvija: And thank you for listening.