Episode 10: From IT Supplier to Change Partner: T-Systems’ Human-Centric PLM Transformation

In this episode of the Share PLM Podcast, we are joined by Thomas Winden and Kerstin Roulet from T-Systems. 

Thomas Winden works as Tribe Lead Emerging Business & Innovation at T-Systems. He joined the company in 2012 after eight years in consulting and has since focused on PLM, Agile methodologies, and business development. Since 2022, he has led PLM strategy, partnerships, and portfolio management.

Kerstin Roulet is a Change Consultant at T-Systems with a background in PLM and IT. Since joining in 2012, she has specialized in Agile transformation and cultural change, leading initiatives to enhance communication, collaboration, and team dynamics within PLM projects.

The conversation explores how T-Systems integrates human-centric methodologies into its PLM projects, emphasizing collaboration, communication, and cultural change as essential elements of success. The company prioritizes helping clients take ownership of their transformation journeys by embedding change management practices into technical implementations. With a clear long-term vision, T-Systems is actively expanding its PLM services beyond traditional industries and regions, positioning itself as a trusted partner in digital product lifecycle transformation. 

Here are the main themes that emerged:

⚉ Organizational Transformation: From Hierarchy to Tribes
⚉ “Agile Doing” vs. “Agile Being”
⚉ Cultural and Soft‑Skill Enablement
⚉ PLM’s New Identity at T‑Systems
⚉ Insights for PLM Implementers
⚉ Customer Ownership in PLM Transformation


CONNECT WITH THOMAS AND KERSTIN:
⚉ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kerstin-roulet-376365147/ 
⚉ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-winden/ 

CONNECT WITH SHARE PLM:
⚉ Website: https://shareplm.com/ 


Join us every month to listen to fascinating interviews, where we cover a wide array of topics, from actionable tips, to personal experiences, to strategies that you can implement into your PLM strategy.

If you have an interesting story to share and want to join the conversation, contact us and let's chat. We can't wait to hear from you!

Transcript

[00:00:12] BEATRIZ GONZALEZ:
Hello everyone and welcome to the Share PLM podcast. I'm Beatriz Gonzalez, CEO of Share PLM. Like in every episode, I'm with my co-host, Jos Voskuil and with two exciting guests. Hi Jos. How are you doing? And who is with us today?

[00:00:26] JOS VOSKUIL:
Hola Bea. Today we're talking with two different guests from T-Systems. And in the past I came across T-Systems more as an services and an IT company. But meanwhile they have gone through a big transformation, which we will discuss also in our podcast today.

And our first guest is Kirsten Roulet, who has been focusing on last two years on modern ways of working agile soft skills and change management. And we have Thomas Winden, who is active in the PLM space as a business management development leader.

Kirsten and Thomas, a warm welcome to this podcast. And we are curious to learn first a little bit about you and what drives you in the world of PLM. Kirsten, can I start with you?

[00:01:05] KERSTIN ROULET:
Yeah, of course. Thank you Jos. Thank you for having us here today. My name is Kerstin Roulet and I'm working for T-Systems since 2012. I started that time in the area of PLM working as a team leader. But overall I have a huge IT background I would say. So working before with networks and so on and after five or six years working as a team leader, I started with looking more into the world of Agile transformation.

And there was a digital journey in T-Systems and I found my passion, so to say, in really preparing and conducting workshops, having a real output of a workshop, not only a discussion.

And then also I really found my passion to deal with soft topics like communication, collaboration, mindset, feedback culture, culture overall. And with learning more and more about such topics, I really see that a huge potential in those topics for our area, for PLM, for I think the IT area overall, yeah, and this is what drives me at the moment here in PLM to improve things, to make the working world a little bit better.

[00:02:29] JOS VOSKUIL:
Okay, thanks for the introduction, Kerstin. And I think your mindset aligns very much with our mindsets of Share PLM and also my personal mindset, also starting from the technology, then realizing the people what is happening in the field is making you really tick. But Thomas, how about you?

[00:02:46] THOMAS WINDEN:
Yeah. Thanks Jos. And thanks Bea for having us here in the podcast. I started my professional career working for a consultancy company for around about in eight years. And after then changing to T-Systems, I moved more and more in the direction of PLM and in parallel right from the beginning at T-Systems I got in touch with Agile methodologies like Scrum and XP. And started to move deeper and deeper into these kind of topics.

And around 10 years ago, I was really focused much on the topic of Agile leadership and drove an initiative here at T-Systems for the leaders in the automotive department, around about 100 leaders and 1200 employees.

Regarding Agile leadership, I became a management 3.0 facilitator. And organized lots of workshops to bring in tools, methods and the thinking behind Agile leadership into our leadership team.

After that I was a part of forming the new structure for our Agile transformation with erasing two levels of hierarchy. In the new structure, one of the levels was the level I was currently on. So after that, I had to find a new job in IT systems. But despite that it was the right shift to getting rid of two levels of hierarchy that was going into the right direction. So after that in a role of a personnel responsible for the team that is working on our own T-Systems, PLM products, mainly in the direction of migration, integration, data exchange.

And around about one year later I was becoming the business responsible for that area. For all of the products, leading the product managers and also the projects we had in this area.

And in 2022 when the former head of the PLM department retired, I took over the responsibility for that area. And after one year I went into the direction, as you already explained, of business development, partner management and portfolio management inside the PLM department.

[00:04:54] JOS VOSKUIL:
Okay. So I think, yeah, a massive amount of experience. And when we had our pre-discussion before this interview I knew T-Systems as a technology company, but now I realize you have undergone, I would say, a very significant transformation yourselves. Can you tell us more about this transformation you have been going through as a company?

[00:05:13] THOMAS WINDEN:
Yes, it was, as I said in 2017, 18, where we started the first activities into that direction. And this, I will not say this ended, but one of the, the major cornerstones in that transformation was the new organizational structure we had, taking somehow the Spotify model as a role model with chapters and tribes and skills for knowledge exchange.

Having a smaller hierarchy, having also more interaction, more communication with that coming up and aligning that also with lots of communication and workshops to make our people understand that it's not just a new structure and the team is not just called the chapter now.  But there are different things behind, there are different ways of working with more focusing on really the Agile values behind.

[00:06:13] BEATRIZ GONZALEZ:
You are mentioning Agile and usually Agile it's more perceived as a approach to project management, right? More from the technical side. And you both has mentioned a lot change management, people change management. And we have Kerstin here in this podcast also representing. For the listeners, how you combine those, the methodologies at T-Systems and also for your customers. What do they have in common?

[00:06:41] KERSTIN ROULET:
You mean referring to the Agile? So whatever is, let's say Agile methodology chose for us and we had here a picture that we used often, we call it the Agile Iceberg, where you have at the top. So what is visible is the Agile tools and methods that were also newly introduced to be used to make it more easy to work in this, I think more complex environment.

And if you look at an iceberg, there is a lot of the iceberg is under the surface of the water. And this is where yeah, we call, this is the Agile Being. So you have the Agile Doing, visible, the tools, methods, and the Agile Being, under the surface is the bigger part of the iceberg, with this components like communication, collaboration.

And this is what Thomas meant also that it's not only to introduce a new role as a chapter lead, right? This would be a role. You see it on the iceberg and the definition, but with this role comes also this change in attitude of a chapter lead and also what it means then finally, in change of behavior. Yeah. How to deal with the employees, to be, for example, not the one who tells something to the employees, but to first listen to the employees. Right? So this is how we try to make the difference between Agile Doing and Agile Being.

[00:08:22] BEATRIZ GONZALEZ:
Okay. Very interesting. And do you apply this method internally and also externally in your projects with your customers, or it's more internally at T-Systems?

[00:08:33] THOMAS WINDEN:
As we have, are doing lots of project work and we can't do this without the customer. So our main focus is the customer. And with this transformation, there was also a change in, in the mindset of many of our people. What Kerstin explained really also to listen to get into the role of our customers and with that to understand better what they really need and really focus on the needs of the customers.

And also trying to have a collaboration with the customer, really full of trust and openness and transparency. This is of course something we also strived for before, but it's especially needed if you are doing projects with Agile methodologies behind, because they don't work without these kind of values.

[00:09:27] BEATRIZ GONZALEZ:
Totally and trust is crucial for sure.

[00:09:29] JOS VOSKUIL:
Right. I just remember at the early implementation trainings I always did in, in the smart team days, I started with we don't know the customer, and the customer doesn't know what they want. And this is the way many implementation starts. And therefore you have to connect and as you said, Thomas, build the trust and the relation on the people side and listen carefully.

Did your customer see this transformation happening also, if you look at your customers, because in the past you might been the IT provider, but now you're doing more, how did you achieve that?

[00:10:03] THOMAS WINDEN:
I would say there you have to look a little bit also on the history of T-Systems and with that, the history of what have we been doing in PLM and what we are doing now. And coming from the IT department of Mercedes or Daimler and Volkswagen, so was our foundation with debis Systemhaus and gedas.

We have been working for these two customers really a lot, and they were our main customers and the focus we're working on, and especially working with individual software development projects. And in the past years, we moved away from that and opened ourselves to other customers, to other industries and also to other portfolio elements like implementing PLM standard software solutions, like as I mentioned before, developing our own products for integration and migration use cases.

And with that, we approach new customers and if you approach a new customer, you really have to start building trust. And this can only be done really with openness, with deep understanding of the customer, with intense collaboration. And, of course it doesn't work out the same way with all customers, but I would say there are lots of customers where we've established really a collaboration on eye level with openness, with transparency, with trust, and that is something we achieved from my point of view in in the past years very well.

[00:11:36] BEATRIZ GONZALEZ:
And this is very interesting because we had the the PLM summit in May, and lot of the speakers were mentioning honesty with is like a combination of trust, transparency, right? And all these values. That you are mentioning, so it seems is key for a successful transformation.

[00:11:52] THOMAS WINDEN:
Yeah. And sometimes you have to, you need a few weeks or months with the customer to get on the same level. To get on the same level of communication and collaboration, but especially during that time, it's crucial to really listen, to understand, and also to think and act more slowly to try to figure out why is the customer saying this and that? Why is he acting like that? And with that kind of approach, you get the understanding. And with that understanding, you get on the same level of conversation. And with that, you come to really a collaboration.

[00:12:33] JOS VOSKUIL:
Exactly. Yeah. I think what you see in this phase that you as a service provider become a partner. You're not just providing a service and because often you see the situation where the customer says, just make it work. You've done it before. You know what you want to do. Where from your answer, as I mentioned, they don't know what they want also.

So you have to build this relationship on understanding what both, uh, sides want. Kerstin, you, this was your favorite topic. How did you get into the people side?

[00:14:08] KERSTIN ROULET:
Well, I think, looking at customers, I think, if you meet, let's say in the first time, and I have to say that I'm not involved in those early discussions with the entire customer. But from one customer, I know that it's not that easy to really address at the beginning those topic change management and how it's important and crucial because as also you just said that the focus is much on the technical side, it's not so much on the other stuff, so just make it work. Right.

And I think with the time and also if you start the collaboration and you build up the trust and you see then that there are hurdles right, in the way in the project that you can then also be very open to your counterparts then at the customer side to say, well, we need to look maybe into another area where we can will find the or hopefully we will find the solutions for our problems because it's not the technical part, but it's more the change in communication part.

So really ask your people what they need and also try to find out what it's in their way, what makes them stop them to follow you. Right? But this comes, I think from my experience is really that the IT people in the first step are not that interested in these soft topics. But as I said at the beginning, for me in the days we have right now, it's that the potentials really are within those soft topics because tools and processes won't help you.

[00:15:51] BEATRIZ GONZALEZ:
How are you training your people? So they are not called IT people, but they have also this mission about the people side?

[00:16:01] KERSTIN ROULET:
It's a never ending journey, I would say, right? It's important that you don't be that frustrated to stop your mission, at least this is my personal opinion and to always jump in when there is a possibility for them that you give them support. And that you can help them and also to listen them and also to wait.

If they say, well, I think we need to work on, for example, we had this year with the leaders and they said, we need to work on empathy. Right. This is important, but we don't know how to be empathic. And also really in business to behave in an empathic way in the business. And then we did the workshops and in small groups and it was really fun. And it was, I think a challenge for them. You were in, you were, yeah, to change the behavior. Like, okay, how can I act and to show more empathy? Yeah. What can I do?

[00:17:13] JOS VOSKUIL:
So Thomas, you are probably the guy that experienced it the transformation. What is your experience?

[00:17:19] THOMAS WINDEN:
Yeah, what Kerstin said is completely right. And in addition to that, as I said in the beginning, I facilitated several management 3.0 workshop, and it's also focusing very much on these things like empathy and listening and so on. And, but I also figured out that you can talk about it very often you can facilitate workshops, but if you don't really reflect yourself and also get some kind of coaching and hint, it's very hard to have it so deep inside yourself that it's part of your normal acting.

And I think this we really achieved with the support of our Agile coaches and especially, like Kerstin, going very, very deep into areas of coaching, into areas of the transformation and change management. Looking at the soft skill side and always offering the support, always offering the help. And this is what you have to do. You have to have experience people with a background in change management that could offer support in trainings in small groups, but also on an individual level that you are, as an employee in a kind of safe environment and open yourself and with that also, yeah.

What I figured out is really a self-reflection is one of the key elements in order to develop in that direction and in order to get there, you have to have this kind of safe environment. You have to have this coaching and someone talking to you and discussing about what you experienced and how you behaved. So this is very, very crucial.

[00:19:08] JOS VOSKUIL:
It's exactly, one of the themes of the PLM summit. I mean, we want to have it, uh, face to face because we want to have this human connection instead of a geeky conference about technology. And I think that is, as you mentioned, it's so important to have this reflection, this discussion.

Another point also coming back to the beginning is that it's important that the customer owns the transformation. And that's why you are a partner and not a supplier to their project. And, yeah, I always see the challenge. They consider you as a tool supplier or a knowledge supplier, and then they don't want to own it.

How do you deal with that? How do you make it them own also their transformation? Do you have any methodology, any tricks or tips for our audience?

[00:19:54] THOMAS WINDEN:
Yeah, it's really like you said, T-Systems is not very well known for change management consultancy. And we are the IT service provider. And sometimes we're happy if we are seen as a PLM provider, even though we have for many years a portfolio in that area. But it really depends on the customer and their openness and their view on change management if they see the necessity or not.

So it's not just that you have a one size fits all approach. Sometimes if the customer doesn't recognize change management as a crucial part and doesn't want to hear anything about change management in the proposals, and you have to somehow bring it in and go into every meeting and improve the communication, give hints in what to do, and with that, somehow bring in the change management in a different way.

Not that open that you say, okay, we need change management. We establish change management. We have dedicated people for change management or having partners that are introducing change management also with kind of history and track record. Sometimes you have the cases where you have to always support the customer in improving communication and in getting the real stakeholder of the PLM solution in and understanding how they act with the new PLM system, with the new integration solution, with the new CAT system or whatever.

[00:21:25] JOS VOSKUIL:
The most important question often is, who owns the PLM at your customer? That tells you a lot huh.

[00:21:31] THOMAS WINDEN:
Yeah. And often it's the IT department and that's not sufficient if they don't have a really a good communication also with the experts using the systems. Yeah.

[00:21:43] BEATRIZ GONZALEZ:
Yes.

[00:21:44] KERSTIN ROULET:
Let me add maybe one experience that I am currently do right now because I'm working here in an internal big program and we have, let's say the same positions here in the program, like somebody who provides something new tools and processes, and we have a customer, even it's an internal customer, but it's probably the same situation.

And I think, or this is my standpoint that you really, at a specific point in time, you really have to define friendly, open words, crisp and clear about the situation. And also to really make it clear for the customer that it's a joint job we do. And it's not only the job of the provider to, yeah, prepare and publish new processes and make the tool available. So that it's really a joint effort also with the customer to be finally successful. Right. And for me, I think from my experience really often these friendly, crisp, and clear words are missing. This is my experience.

[00:22:56] JOS VOSKUIL:
Okay.

[00:22:58] BEATRIZ GONZALEZ:
Yeah. Yes. And also there are different levels of change management needs at the companies, right? So there might be companies that really have people prepared to lead the change management, and they need maybe some training or some guidance. Other companies that are quite starting and they haven't realized they haven't failed yet, for example, so, and they need me more help later. So, yeah, that depends.

[00:23:23] THOMAS WINDEN:
Yeah. That's also our impression. Yeah.

[00:23:27] JOS VOSKUIL:
I think we're getting close to the end of this podcast. And then we always end with the fantastic question about experience. Because we believe experience is what you get when you don't get what you expect. And well, we discussed already some of the best practices here. But now do you have some experiences you want to share with the audience? I start with you Kerstin.

[00:23:48] KERSTIN ROULET:
Experiences. So being, let's say, a change agent with really passion, the passion for change and the human factor. I would say truly, don't stop. If you get frustration, don't take it personally, right? It's not you, it's the topic.

And regarding, let's say, what I would like to change. It would be really that to treat the knowledge about the human change management. So with the same priority and importance, how you treat the technical knowledge. Because I think in the current days we have in this WCA world and this complex world the potentials, they are in the soft skills part, probably no longer in the technical part. This would be my wish.

[00:24:39] JOS VOSKUIL:
And I hope, and I think also, yeah, people are getting more and more aware that they cannot manage technology anymore. It is the human side that is the ones that needs to be managed. And Thomas, what was your best experience so far in your career in the this world that you want to share?

[00:24:56] THOMAS WINDEN:
Yeah, well it's a very personal experience and I'm not sure if it was the best experience. A significant experience I really gained was when I failed to pass the assessment center to, to continue being the head of the PLM department. Of course I expected to pass the exam, the assessment, but after failing it was, I really got lots of support, especially from casting and other colleagues that helped me to start a kind of self-reflection journey. And with that I really could understand why the assessors came to the result and, and let me fail. And so it was high speed track through the face of rejection with that kind of experience, with that kind of self-reflection.

And that made me personally really working with that negative experience really better and to understand the situation, also to get a better view on myself, how to deal with that and what to learn out of that situation. And this is something I really can recommend to work on the self-reflection and the openness and better understand, how people react and why they react in different situations.

[00:26:17] JOS VOSKUIL:
Personally, I can also reflect on this. I started as a manager of a data management group and I didn't like it in the end. I mean, I like to work with people with my individual projects and people-centric. And so you had a great assessment, they saved you, your fun and work, I think in that way.

[00:26:34] BEATRIZ GONZALEZ:
Yeah. And the life is an assessment, right? So we are always growing and changing. So I think we should always be asking ourselves if we are on the right path. Right.

One last, last question. I'm very interested of how T-systems, what is the vision of T-system for PLM implementation in the upcoming years? And what are your short term and long term goals?

[00:26:56] THOMAS WINDEN:
It's really to change not only our business, but really to continue to work on, we set up a strategy for our PLM department and we are really working on that strategy since one and a half years, which is different to what we did in the past. So it's really a strategy and it's becoming operational and we're working on that.

We're working on the topics that we need to work on from our perspective. Also with a diverse team, not just leadership team. And we are working on becoming a recognized PLM service provider with the solution that really help our customers in the world of digitization especially regarding their product lifecycle processes.

[00:27:40] BEATRIZ GONZALEZ:
Okay. Are you expanding to some new region or growing in some markets or what are your business goals?

[00:27:49] THOMAS WINDEN:
Yeah, it is always looking at where to or in which direction to go. As you said, regions and markets coming from the automotive industry with a large background in that area. Currently, especially in Germany, that's not the most growing industry. So we have to look for other industries, other regions.

T-Systems is a global player, so we have lots of opportunities also outside of Germany or the Central European region, and that's what we're heading for. Yes.

[00:28:19] BEATRIZ GONZALEZ:
Okay. Very good. Jos, do you have any more questions?

[00:28:24] JOS VOSKUIL:
No, I'm very happy that we met again with a very people-centric team. Thank you for your transformation story. I think it helps a lot and I think it helps also others to understand where the real power of PLM can come if you start with the people. Thank you very much, Kerstin, Thomas.

[00:32:31] BEATRIZ GONZALEZ: 
Thank you very much for joining us. It was very interesting.