Comptel, Chess and Data Analytics in Italy

Posted: June 26th, 2013 | Author: Special Contributor | Filed under: Behind the Scenes | Tags: , , , | 2 Comments »

This is a special guest post from Comptel Sales Manager Cristina Monacelli.

On June 13, Comptel hosted an event in Rome at the Finnish ambassador’s residence to introduce our solutions to the Italian telecommunications market. We really wanted to engage with the country’s communications service providers (CSPs) and this gathering gave us that opportunity.

CEO Juhani Hintikka shared the strategy behind Comptel’s slogan, ‘Making Data Beautiful,’ and illustrated the power of automating decision-making to drive business opportunities and build stronger customer relationships.

Luca Desiata, our keynote speaker of the evening, delivered a thought-provoking and powerful presentation on “Chess and Corporate Strategy.” He used the metaphor of chess as a guideline for a course of corporate strategy, leadership, decision-making and problem-solving.

In the latter part of the evening, the guests experienced exquisite Finnish delicacies, including fennel-salmon with horseradish and Rhubarb pie, as found in some of the country’s best traditional restaurants. And, of course, everyone enjoyed the taste of the fine Italian wines.

The Chess Game Behind Corporate Strategy

Desiata’s keynote speech began by outlining the game of chess itself – a game with deep historical roots and enduring cross-cultural fascination, and how it was influenced by strategic thinking, elegance, analytical skills, intuition and talent.

Chess has been used throughout history for a number of parallels but, strangely enough, never before for corporate strategy. It has contributed to the progress of information technology and artificial intelligence, and has been used to test war strategies and psychological theories, but businesses have been largely left out of the equation.

Since Desiata is a corporate strategy expert with a passion for this game, he decided to change that. His speech highlighted the powerful ideas in his new his book, which is appropriately titled  Chess and Corporate Strategy, and what business leaders can learn from this age-old game, including:

1. Advanced Strategic Thinking

Decades ago, experiments were conducted with some of the greatest chess champions. A team of psychologists asked the players to verbally explain the process of strategy elaboration behind a move, and discovered categories of thinking that are surprisingly similar to the ways of business strategy.

Some of the most poignant parallels were around decision-making biases and pitfalls in the process of strategy elaboration. Just like chess masters, executives have to reconsider all of the options on the table again and again, and make sure their decisions aren’t being weighed by pre-existing beliefs.

2. Negotiations

A game of chess is all about careful negotiations. Players trade pieces and spaces and hope they’re getting the better part of the deal.

Negotiations tournaments can mimic this process by dividing people into pairs to negotiate on a business case. These negotiations are repeated by changing pairs until, after a certain number of runs, the winner of the “tournament” emerges. The tournament dynamics highlight the transactional, prize-forming process, which in the last rounds tend to converge towards an equilibrium value determined by different elements such as technique, motivation and preparation.

3. Approach to Risk and Uncertainty Management

Risk-return matrices – like losing a Queen to take out a well-positioned Rook on the chessboard – are constantly applied to the financial and industrial portfolios. Desiata explained that the risk attitude of a chess player for choosing a variation is similar to the risk attitude of an investor. This establishes a quantitative parallel between chess and finance.

Chess and Corporate Strategy” by Luca Desiata has been offered at MIP – Politechnique of Milan Business School and at Bocconi University’s Executive MBA. Customized executive courses have been given for managers of major Italian companies.


Exceeding Customer Expectations with Services

Posted: March 30th, 2012 | Author: Special Contributor | Filed under: Behind the Scenes, Telecom Trends | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Ralph Booth joined Comptel’s Europe West services team as a contract project manager towards the end of last summer and enjoyed it so much he became a permanent employee by the end of the year. In this blog post, Ralph explains why he was impressed by Comptel’s services proposition and strategy.


Since joining Comptel in August 2011, I have found the company’s approach to services particularly refreshing and relevant in today’s market. More often than not for market-leading software providers, the description of services in customer proposals comes loaded with delivery facts, boastful methodology claims and complex resourcing suggestions. In the current market, customers look beyond these brochure-style claims and instead look for a partner to help them evolve, develop and lead. Whilst Comptel is founded on a heritage of successful deliveries, I have found we also have a more relevant services offering that expands our services footprint beyond the traditional delivery credibility into a more engaging and personal service approach. This is what makes frontline services such an exciting and important part of Comptel’s evolving business—we really are all about the customer.

Regional Emphasis: Comptel adopts a regional approach to services, positioning teams in local hubs to bring customers closer to design and implementation work. In Europe West alone, we have regional offices in the U.K., Netherlands, Germany, Bulgaria and Italy. A regional approach guarantees that Comptel builds lasting relationships with our clients.

Relationships and Continuity: During my induction programme, I learned that the average number of years of service by Comptel employees was around five. This emphasis on continuity is crucial in providing a common approach and retaining knowledge about our customers, their preferences and solutions. The experience within the business of our customers allows us to start conversations from a position of mutual understanding.

Relevance and Structure: Services in Comptel are logically structured and include the skills and expertise one would expect, ranging from solution architects, software developers, support teams, project management and ongoing customer care and contact through client management. These defined roles allow us to build sensibly sized project teams with clearly defined roles and objectives that customers understand and can relate to. Furthermore, project team members are accessible and easily contacted or brought on site. Comptel’s customers get to know the personalities who work with them on their deployments!

Interaction and Management Accessibility: Comptel values regular internal and external steering boards. These are held to share, assess and track progress of projects. Significantly, the emphasis placed on these sessions means they are well supported, with senior management attending to listen to the feedback. Feedback is also encouraged through customer satisfaction surveys that look to understand what went well and on occasions what can be improved next time.

Project Management: Comptel recognises the benefit of good, old-fashioned project management and insists on having a dedicated project manager on all of our major programmes. This approach provides our customers with leadership and direction, but also makes a very clear statement as to the level of accountability the services team feels about its work.

To sum up, my impressions thus far are that services from Comptel more than meet our customers’ expectations. Comptel is large enough to deliver, lead and influence, but is small enough to listen to, engage with and build lasting relationships with its customers.