Data and AI training at scale: A1 Telekom Austria Group

Success Story

Data and AI training at scale: A1 Telekom Austria Group

See how A1 Telekom Austria Group launched a training program that stretched and strengthened the organization’s data literacy.

Background

A1 Telekom Austria Group is the leading fixed and mobile network operator in Central Europe globally at year-end 2021, the group had 17,856 employees, 26 million customers in seven countries, and revenue of 4.75B euros.

The telecommunications industry has undergone significant changes over the last decade with the rise of smartphones and other mobile devices making data services a critical part of the sector’s ecosystem.

To support the transformation effort, A1 understood that utilizing the organization’s data capabilities will be crucial. However, there was limited execution of data use cases, varying levels of data maturity across countries, communication issues between business experts and data scientists, and insufficient exchange on the topic of data/AI among people with entry level knowledge.

Business Value

Completed by hundreds of experts from 8 countries and recommended to many more, training designed useful data solutions to 80+ business problems.

Industry

Telco

Case

Data Training

Challenge

To maintain its competitive edge, the company needed to upskill its workforce and raise the overall level of data and AI maturity.

We, at DAIN, structured a data and AI maturity assessment with A1 which revealed that while the organization had made significant progress in terms of its data and AI capabilities, there was a need for more investment in employee data literacy and education.

Notable issues included:

Varying maturity among different operating companies
80% of the data capabilities were not utilized by the business functions
Use case development was sporadic and hard to scale
Data literacy within the business functions was low

Upskilling the workforce would need to involve:

Leveling up the data maturity across operating companies
Increasing data literacy within business functions
Driving capability adoption by business units
Developing use cases driven by business functions including executive sponsorship
Investing more in employee data education

The project had to encompass three key principles:

Focus on a change in behavior
Focus on job-aids that solved real business challenges
Make it measurable (e.g. new dashboards) and tangible (e.g. including self-assessments and surveys)

Action

In stakeholder workshops, A1 stakeholders and DAIN studios collaborated to assess the requirements for a large scale program.

They defined the project scope, determined which participants should take part, and established measurements for success.

The emphasis was on business impact. Participants would learn about AI/data opportunities, define clear pain points, pitch data use case ideas to senior management, and work in teams on real use cases.

The program would have three modules over two months. The sessions would be overseen by both DAIN trainers and A1 mentors. There would be a combination of different formats with intro sessions, discussions sessions, feedback sessions, and e-courses consumed individually by participants.

To foster community and build a stronger peer network, there would also be plenty of team building exercises and gamification.

Impact

In the program, DAIN and A1 trained 1000 company business leaders to become domain experts. 2,000 other employees also received entry level training.

We generated use case ideas for real business pain-points and increased cross-country exchange on the topic of data and AI. Our program generated 86 use cases from 8 cohorts.

When asked about impact Elena Ravnjashki, Senior Learning and Development Expert at A1 Group, said the following, “We have seen improvements in data literacy among employees since implementing the program, including a mindset shift towards starting with the business problem rather than the available data, and increased eagerness to learn and implement use case ideas”.

Elena went on to highlight the “hands-on nature” of the program and the successful incorporation of gamification elements that contributed to “engagement and connectedness among participants”.

For an organization like A1, who operate in a highly competitive and rapidly evolving market, the program was a great way to manage the challenges and opportunities presented by data and AI.

Joining forces with A1 — we, at DAIN, could take teams quickly through an innovative and flexible training program. This fulfilled our purpose of helping clients unleash business performance through data and AI.

Elena Ravnjashki

Senior Learning & Development Expert

at A1 Telekom Austria Group

“The goals of the training program were to train 1000 business domain experts, generate use case ideas for real business pain-points, and increase cross-country exchange on the topic of data and AI. The program was successful in generating 86 use cases from 8 cohorts and connecting experts to increase ongoing exchange and support.”

Client

A1 Telekom Austria Group

A1 Telekom Austria Group is the leading fixed and mobile network operator in Central Europe Globally at year-end 2021, the group had 17,856 employees, 26 million customers in seven countries, and revenue of 4.75B euros.