The challenges to always try out new approaches

Lennel Tan, Marketing Manager of SingTel Innovation Exchange Business group shares with us how life is like working with Singtel, a leading player in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry.

Problem-solving is a big part of his job, and Lennel loves the challenge to always try out new approaches. 

How is it like working in the fast-moving ICT industry?

It is quite exciting and rather different from my previous advertising jobs. We’re at a point in time where Telco operators are diversifying and moving into various new lines of businesses.

Given the high-levels of competition in both our original and new businesses, it definitely makes for exciting times as we carve out new niches, constantly keeping ourselves on our toes.

We need to be both proactive and reactive at the same time, and being in the online/digital space, our competitors are not limited to just the traditional local players.

Lennel Tan
Marketing Manager - SingTel Innovation Exchange - Business Group

How do you keep yourself abreast with the developments in the industry?

I’ve always had the habit of reading blogs and websites since my tertiary school days. Every morning, and when I can find the time, I’d probably be on my Google Reader scanning through thousands of articles from RSS feeds. Most of the feeds that I keep track of are from sites such as The Verge, Gizmodo and Telruptive.

What do you like about your marketing job?

I find that it’s challenging to be working in a fast-paced environment, and I love it we are open to trying out new ways to reaching out to customers and to meet our business objectives.  

What are some of the challenges you face and how do you overcome them?
One of the biggest challenges in our recent projects is figuring out how we can reach out to Small and Medium Enterprise’s technology decision makers in the online space. What a company like ours would traditionally do is to spend on advertising and events to engage the target audience.

Instead, what we chose to do is to identify a gap in their decision making process and tried to meet that need. The initial results of this endeavour have been rather encouraging. It’s a different approach to problem solving – it’s a lot easier to create something to engage your customers in the online space, and we chose to try it out.

Based on professional experience, what career advice would you give to those aspiring to work in the ICT industry? What should they do to improve themselves?

The ICT industry is changing very rapidly, so don’t think of Telcos as only telecommunication service providers. It’s a very challenging industry to work in at the moment, and the opportunity for growth is massive.
 

How do you feel about being part of an award-winning company?

I was and still am very excited about being given a chance to work here. The industry recognition we get is an affirmation that the direction we’re moving in is the right one, and I’m glad I can be part of the revolution.

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