adesso turned Telia’s big data masses into hard facts

Telia Infra has an important role in the digital society’s future. On behalf of Telia Sverige, fixed and mobile networks are delivered in one of the world’s most connected countries. At the same time, they are responsible for mapping and operating the old State run telecom-company's copper land line network – a job that requires both a windscreen and a rear-view mirror. Huge amounts of data were collected each week, and it was a long time since that old Excel sheet was enough. to handle it all.

To create structure in the data sets, Telia Infra initiated a collaboration with adesso Sweden. The project was named Kuben, as the project was named – basically, a data warehouse that, over the years, has grown in functionality. Kuben became an eye-opener that, in many ways, have changed focus on how to work. And the development costs have quickly been recollected.

“Using Kuben, we found so many instances of double billing, non-followed-up operation costs and incorrect contract terms caused solely by the data volumes that had simply been too heavy to handle. Telia Group was able to save 200 million SEK in two years”, says Daniel Dahlbom.

That Kuben as a system is 100 percent malleable to Telia Infra’s challenges is seen as a strength. Daniel Dahlbom thinks that the benefits are obvious compared to choosing a system from "off the shelf". “One size fits all-systems can be limited and expensive to develop further. With Kuben we are able to twist and turn however we want, and create new modules as the needs occur”.

In Kuben, operation knowledge from Telia is combined with technical competence from adesso Sweden. The aspiration from day one has been to deliver business benefits by automating manual work and developing a basis for strategic decisions in operative processes. Several years ago, the discussion on implementine AI in selected areas came to life, and the team at adesso was strengthened with a data scientist – with their roots in mathematics.

“The exchange of knowledge has been massive between us and adesso Sweden. They have succeeded in strengthening the team with competence that is hard to find today, and was even harder to find when we first started this journey”, says Daniel Dahlbom.

“The trust we have received has made us move quickly and bring in the latest technologies in our field”, says the developers from adesso, and explains that they evaluated several frameworks before finally sticking to Apache Spark at that time.

“Apache Spark was fast, fun to work with and delivered everything we needed. Above all, it’s open-source"! THe platform, long after, still allowed for fast and reliable development and improvements. Now, just a part of a much greater solution.

“We created an AI application as AI should be, that is, without human blessing”, says Daniel Dahlbom and explains that this means, amongst other things, that Kuben very early on could make predictive, strategic analyses. In principle, they could nsee the future.

“The AI algorithms we are developing mean that Kuben is trained to make its own, data-driven decisions. In practice, this means that, in addition to the fact that manual work can be automated, a relentless amount of data can be turned into smart business decisions”, says the architect from adesso Sweden

“AI has opened the door to efficiency, profit optimization and proactive sales. We have got a fortune teller”, says Daniel Dahlbom.

He wants to summarize the collaboration with adesso with two words – dynamic and smooth. It was a long time ago that the difference was made between us and those in the team. It has been an important mindset.

“We don’t rent consultants. We rent colleagues. At adesso, we rent, for example, a colleague who is a data scientist”!

He appreciated that adesso has been able to accelerate and decelerate in the project – and further develop the team with a sense of rhythm. The collaboration has demanded full control on Python, Linux, Java, big data, machine learning and agile methods. But also the ability to quickly become acquainted with an advanced business model. There have been no problems.

“The team at adesso really masters all disciplines. If they had been athletes and competed in the Olympics, they would have taken a podium place in every sport”!