Why Telenor chose Asset Bank to simplify global asset management

Its name may have changed over the years, but one thing has remained remarkably consistent about Telenor Group, the Norwegian-headquartered telecommunications company. It can always be found at the forefront of cutting-edge technological innovation.

That’s been true since its launch in 1855 when the first telegraph line opened in Norway between Christiania – now Oslo – and Drammen, 40km away. Fast forward 14 years and Telenor (then known as Telegrafverket) was opening the first telegraph line between Norway and Great Britain. Later, in the first half of the 20th century, it set to work developing a reputation as a pioneering builder of both fixed and wireless communications networks.

This, then, is a company with an enviably rich history and heritage.

Yet Telenor has never believed in resting on its laurels. So, after its early days as a supplier of telegraphs, switchboards and phone booths, it’s now known as a leading telecoms provider that brings connectivity services to approximately 160 million customers in the Nordics and Asia. In addition, it’s currently implementing innovative AI solutions across its operations, from customer service to network optimisation.

The challenge: Different requirements in different markets 

Telenor Group is a growing company with 11,000 employees operating in a variety of different markets including Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Malaysia and Bangladesh. What’s more, its portfolio of services is as varied as its customer base. Telenor is a mobile operator and an IT operator. It’s a broadband service provider and it’s a provider of Internet of Things (IoT) and digital services.

However, this impressive size and scope can make its range of branding and marketing materials difficult to manage.

“We are a large, international company,” explains Henrik Sigmundstad, director, multimedia, Telenor. “So our people in different markets all follow the group but have their own digital asset requirements as well. For example, our staff in Denmark will need access to core assets from the group – but they will also have their own assets in the Danish language. There is not one single source of demand.”

Telenor was no stranger to using a digital asset management (DAM) solution to store and manage its branding and marketing media, including product images, campaign ads, videos, banner ads and assorted icons. Indeed, it had been using a large and complex DAM for eight years.

The trouble was, this system was too large and too complex for Telenor's needs. It had too many features that weren’t being used – and the features that would have been useful had to be bought as add-ons. What was required was a less complicated, all-in-one system that could serve all Telenor staff, wherever they are in the world.

The solution: Asset Bank was easy to onboard and simple to use

Telenor’s search for a new digital asset management solution began with Henrik’s team reviewing many different solutions. What really clinched it for them was Asset Bank’s easy-to-navigate folder system, where assets are stored and split into different sub-categories and access levels. It works like this: when administrators create a user group, they can also decide which folders the users in that group can see, access, download from and upload to.

“We really like the folder approach,” says Henrik.

“If you are one organisation based in one location, it would be fine to have one massive central pool of stock images and use tagging so that staff can find the image they’re looking for. But, actually, we have many departments in many locations – and brand images are a relatively small part of our asset library.”

However, with Asset Bank’s folder system, Telenor’s images, icons, posters, adverts, videos and other outward-facing assets can be organised by country and by department.

“So we have a folder for Norway, a folder for Denmark, etc,” explains Henrik. “Within those folders we have a marketing folder where we store our marketing assets, a branding folder where we store our brand images, etc. It’s so simple.”

Set-up was easy, too – unlike Telenor’s previous DAM technology which required a serious level of IT competence. “With Asset Bank, we just needed to know how to make a folder,” says Henrik. “That was more or less it.”

After Telenor adopted the technology they only had a few weeks to extract thousands and thousands of assets from their previous system and move them over to Asset Bank. “That was only possible because of the Folder structure, which meant we didn’t need to tag every image straight away, and because we could move the work we did during our  testing period, strait into the production version” explains Henrik.

Meanwhile, Asset Bank’s IT support team worked with Telenor’s IT staff to ensure features such as single sign-on (SSO) – which makes the logging-in process simpler for staff users – were implemented efficiently.

The impact: Small innovations that make a big difference 

Telenor currently stores more than 30,000 assets in Asset Bank. “We now have a much better overview of all of this material,” says Henrik. “The system is so simple to use and navigate, so our people can find exactly what they need easily and quickly. We appreciate the reduced price point, too,” (compared to their previous DAM provider).

Small features have also made a big but important difference to the company.

For instance, Telenor staff in different markets have been able to customise their own folders with easily identifiable logos. They have also been impressed with the Asset transformer module, which allows them to repurpose versions of the large master files stored in Asset Bank. After all, some brand images can be as much as one gigabyte in size.

“Obviously these files would be much too big to attach to an email or send out with marketing material,” says Henrik. “So we love that we can upload a big file to Asset Bank and then download compressed versions as and when they are needed.”

Finally, it was critical that Asset Bank was able to adhere to Telenor’s strict security, privacy and GDPR policies. “For our brand, reputation is everything,” says Henrik. “So we were very pleased that Asset Bank was focused on privacy and security concerns, and able to answer any questions we had in these areas.”

Initially, roll-out was limited to just 100 high-level Telenor users. “But after a month we realised Asset Bank offered functionalities that all our people should have access to,” says Henrik. “So now all employees across the group are able to log-in and use the system.”

Want to learn more? Read the full case study from Telenor, or book in a chat with the Asset Bank team.