Unleash the potential of our employees: Innovation Zone

Tell us about your daily job...

Hi, I am Sandra. I work in the Strategy and Business Development department of DTSE and I am part of the organizational DTSE Innovation Zone Core Team. The Innovation Zone is an aunt for all DTSE employees where they can apply with their innovative ideas.

What means innovation for you?

Innovation for me basically means “Change“ and “Do something different“. The word “Change“ for me has a positive connotation. We as humans constantly have to keep moving and to adapt to a changing environment. And how do we do this? By inventing something new, by doing things differently, in short: by innovating! And we see that this works out in the current pandemic. Otherwise, the humankind would still live in hollows. Innovating is therefore key for our evolution.

How do you perceive DTSE efforts in innovation?

In my current role, I have the chance to talk to many people that work with innovations for our customers. To be honest, I was not aware of the impressive innovative power of DTSE before I took over this role. DTSE has a strong innovative potential, and with the Innovation Zone, we made up a platform to uncap and leverage that potential. This is the chance for every employee in DTSE to bring their own innovative idea to life. We have seen in the first cycle of the Innovation Zone winning ideas with direct impact on the customer side, for example, the now successfully running project of „External Mailbox with the print function“ from Ioanna Keller and Daniel Wenzel that aims to make contractual documents digitally accessible anytime from any device. As DTSE we need to raise the awareness of our innovative power to position ourself as the innovation partner in the Deutsche Telekom group, and this is what we are working on.

What does the Innovation zone mean to you?

The Innovation Zone is a platform that belongs to all employees in DTSE and it is for me an important trigger to foster the innovation culture and mindset within DTSE and a tool that keeps us as DTSE moving driven by the needs of our customers - a tool to #makeithappen for our customers.

Which ideas you think are the best fit for the Innovation Zone?

Of course, the aim is to have ideas that fulfil a customer's need. This can be an idea with a direct impact on our customer, but also an idea that drives a value for us internally, where our customers indirectly benefit from. The idea can lead to the improvement of products, services or internal processes/ tools, but it can be also something completely new. I would like to encourage all DTSE employees who have an innovative idea to apply. As long as you are passionate, have the motivation to bring your idea to life and grow with it, Innovation Zone is the place to be for you!