KPN’s Digital Transformation and Ethos of Developer Culture

KPN is a leading Dutch telecommunications company that has successfully gone through two waves of digital transformation by putting trust and creativity in the hands of their expert developers.

We speak to Bastiaan Gerrits who has been at KPN since 2008, occupying several roles concerned with Business and IT. From 2017, his role was Programme Director of Business Transformation, where he was responsible for the simplification of the company’s OSS landscape. For the past three years, he’s been responsible for IT for the consumer market.

KPN has an ethos that directly informs its ability to remodel and transform itself to shifting markets. Telcos are successful only insofar as they are able to rapidly adapt to a changing environment and, because they serve to maintain a region’s informational nervous system, their swift adjustment is key to the survival of the entire digital organism. Due to interconnectivity, if a telco fails, the consequences can be far-reaching.