Day 9 in Europe also marks our 2nd day in Prague. It was a little rainy and chilly today, but we had two business visits to keep us inside and dry.
Our day began with a visit to T-Mobile, where we had two speakers. One was a public relations representative, then we were honored to listen to the Czech T-Mobile CEO. The first speaker began with a lot of background information on T-Mobile.
T-Mobile was established in 1996 as a telecommunications company through Deutsche Telekom Group. As of now, T-Mobile has 5.8 million customers, which is over 50% of the Czech Republic's population. Also, the company employees 3,300. T-Mobile has been a fairly rapid growing business. When they were first established in 1996, by 2000, they had reached 1 million customers. By 2006, 6 million customers. As of now, T-Mobile has 99.3% coverage in the Czech area, making them the best network since 2011.
Deustche Telekom Group operates in 50 countries, with a net revenue recorded in 2012 of 60.1 billion EUR. In the end of 2013, Deustche Telecom had 142.5 million customers. But one thing I picked up, especially from the CEO, is that T-Mobile and Deustche Telecom are heavily regulated by the EU, and that causes a lot of disagreeing.
The CEO was Milan Vasina, and he discussed with us his job as a CEO and being a leader in a challenging time. He presented to us steps in being a successful CEO/businessman and those are to…
1. Listen
2. Be able to change and provide the vision
3. Provide a clear strategy and take action
4. Involve others and increase power
5. Communicate
6. Celebrate and boost confidence in success
7. Change corporate culture
8. Self development
Milan also shared with us T-Mobile's strategy which is to be the first choice in communications. With that it includes…
1. Best data network
2. Best customer experience
3. Innovative
4. Growt in business
Overall, the T-Mobile visit was very informational and interesting. Being able to hear directly from the CEO was very cool. Here is a picture of the outside of the T-Mobile building, and also a picture of Milan speaking to our group.
After a lunch break, our next visit was at AVAST! Software where our speaker was Milos Korenoko. AVAST is a free antivirus company with a very long history that has brought them to where they are today. Beginning back in 1960's, AVAST has become a very successful business. AVAST became Window's computer friendly in 1995, in 2001 was launched, and by 2004 had 1 million users! Thanks to the help of their product being marketed by SanDisk.
But SanDisk has really been AVAST's only true marketing help. Since then, AVAST has not paid for ANY marketing at all. Which is astounding to me! Considering how many users they have for their product. A quote Milos used was: "Find out what she wants…and give it to her," to describe their marketing plan. They find out what the people need, make it, and let it take its course.
Overall, AVAST is the most installed antivirus in the world with over 1 million users in 41 countries, with it reaching to 234 countries. AVAST gets over a billion downloads weekly, just to put into perspective how the company is literally exploding out of the seams!
Milos, when we got there, had already done some previous Facebook stalking to find out a little more about us, so the picture I am posting is of when he put our picture into his powerpoint!
Today, we were given a lot of information and got to see two very different businesses. One that spends millions on advertising (T-Mobile), and one that tries not to spend a penny (AVAST). That wasn't the only difference in the two companies, but the one that stuck out the most to me. Even when we got to T-Mobile, they had notebooks, pens, and goodies with their logo all over them on our chairs waiting for us. AVAST did nothing of the sort. So seeing two different marketing styles was very interesting!
Overall another great day in Europe!
XOXO,
Team Wanderlust
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