February 23, 2025
Christopher Smith – VP – TELUS
You Can’t Always Get What You Want From Broadband Or Phone Providers, Christopher Smith – VP TELUS
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This week’s Reboot Chronicles Show is coming to you from #ZohoDay25, Zoho’s annual Analyst gathering in Austin Texas. With top global business and financial analysts and CxO’s from the world’s top corporations, this invite-only conference debuts the hottest technology, AI trends, what people want, and what’s coming next.
Most companies are frantically rebooting their growth plans to meet the realities of fierce AI enabled competition. Though many are focused on how to be more competitive, or provide better experiences for their customers, the telecom sector has often lagged behind. Companies can no longer just provide broadband and mobile services to stay ahead, they have to do more. A lot more. Things like seamless connectivity among devices and even smart homes are table stakes in the hyper-competitive home and office automation enablement landscape.
One company, Telus Communications, is giving customers what they want. One of the world’s largest telecom companies, with 140,000 employees and approx. 20 million customers that generate over $20B in annual revenue, Telus provides commonsense reboot lessons that CxO’s can use now. VP Christopher Smith joins us on this episode of the Reboot Chronicles, for a behind the scenes preview of what he and his colleagues are doing to reboot and expand the category—and how he made the personal transition from startups to corporate life.
Transforming Healthcare And Agriculture
One area that Telus stands out among the other telecommunication companies is the other industries they have entered. Chris notes that we have all “seen telecommunication companies make bets on content, for instance, buying content producers and TV production companies”, Instead of doing that, Telus “started down the path of healthcare in Canada”. They also built a huge an agriculture or AgTech busness. The idea behind getting into healthcare and agriculture is the same as the idea behind being a telecommunications company, to use communication and connectivity to make consumers’ lives better by allowing the consumer to have a better connection to the industry that they are engaging in.
Tackling Ever-Growing E-Waste
Telus stands out above their competitors by making electronics more sustainable. There are people out there who have that drawer in their house that is becoming the “old-tech” drawer, where old Android, Apple, and maybe even Blackberry phones are stored doing nothing. That old tech often ends up in a landfill, adding to environmental damage. Telus is trying to tackle this E-Waste through a refurbishing program, where they refurbish and resell old devices so they stay out of landfills, and can be used by someone else. They are also working on making smart home automation that is technology agnostic, so you won’t need to repurchase all the same products just from a different brand, like Amazon or Google, if you wish to have a smart home.
Journey From a Tech Startup To Tech Giant
Chris has a story that seems to be in line with many tech leaders who have been in the industry for a long time. He started with a startup company in the mid-90s that ended up being sold and gave him a great exit to take his earnings from the sale and put it into his next company. This second company went under during the dot com boom like many others. From that experience, Chris notes it “really ingrains in you what it means to serve customers and know day in and day out am I making the right decisions that are going to see me through to the next round of funding?” This customer first service mindset is one of the many reasons that TELUS remains at the forefront of innovation, while also maintaining its mission of enhancing lives through connectivity.
