Tony Poulos, TelecomTV (00:07):
Hi, Tony Poulos here for TelecomTV at MWC 2026. Today, we bring you a story that resonates with operators everywhere: how to modernise at scale without breaking what already works. We're discussing one of the most ambitious digital transformation programmes in Southeast Asia at by.U, and the successful launch of its next generation SaaS platform powered by Circles. This was not a greenfield experiment. It was a live brownfield transformation delivered while serving millions of customers with full business continuity. Joining me today are Joyce Shia, Chief Information Officer at Telkomsel, responsible for digital technology and digital platforms, including by.U, and Kannan Alagappan, who is Chief Technology Officer at Circles. Welcome to you both. Joyce, let's start with the why. by.U is already one of Indonesia's most successful digital telco brands. Why is now the right time to embark on a transformation of this scale?

Joyce Shia, Telkomsel (01:14):
What we have seen is that we have been using a very old platform and it was time for us to modernise this platform. We also wanted to use the opportunity to really reinvent a new customer experience, specifically for our youth segment that uses the by.U brand. And with that, that's why we have selected Circles as our partner in this transformation.

Tony Poulos, TelecomTV (01:43):
So Joyce, the real dilemma is that everyone wants agility, but no one can afford instability, right?

Joyce Shia, Telkomsel (01:50):
One thing that was key for us is that by.U is an existing brand already, and it's live running in production. Key thing for us during this migration and transformation is to make sure that we don't impact any of our existing customers. But at the same time, we need a new platform to introduce new customer experiences, more rapid agility in terms of product innovation. And that's why we have chosen to partner with Circles to deliver this.

Tony Poulos, TelecomTV (02:18):
Kannan, brownfield transformation is something many operators talk about, but few execute well. Why is it so difficult in practice?

Kannan Alagappan, Circles (02:25):
Yeah, great question. Let me come to that. First of all, before I answer that question, Joyce, great migration last night. Yes. Two and a half million customers on the platform. Wow. As we speak, we migrated two and a half million customers yesterday, flawlessly. No downtime. No impact to the customer experience. And this just didn't happen by chance. I'll say it happened because there are two things that are most important. One is the flexibility of the platform plus the number of dry runs that we did prior to the execution. So that gave us the confidence to do this, as well as following the Telkomsel process and making sure that we adhere to the principles. So it's a combination of legacy meeting modern. And I think we've cracked the code for how to do brownfield migrations without disruptions to customers. So congratulations. We have seven and a half million to go, and we're looking at another week to finish that off.

Tony Poulos, TelecomTV (03:30):
So Kannan, let's unpack that. When we say next generation SaaS platform, what does that mean in concrete terms?

Kannan Alagappan, Circles (03:36):
Yeah. So look, a lot of people get confused when you talk BSS in the context of SaaS platforms. So what we provide is a single code base. Essentially, what it means is I develop a feature for one of our customers, it's available to everybody. There is no change request. It's a single code line with the fan out process. I'm getting a little bit technical here, but that's the nuance, right? So what that translates to the operator, to the end business, is you get features faster than anybody else can imagine that this industry has ever done before. So it doesn't take a whole lot of time to configure a product, launch a new product, and get it out to market, and do marketing campaigns. It's a full stack. So from all the way to UI/UX, as well as our customer data platform, which kind of forms the end-to-end full stack.

Tony Poulos, TelecomTV (04:31):
So Joyce, how important was that balance from an operator's perspective?

Joyce Shia, Telkomsel (04:35):
No, the balance is crucial for us. I think it was quite a challenging journey for both of us. Like what Kannan mentioned, we went through many dry runs, a lot of rounds of testing. As this was a brownfield transformation, we wanted to make sure that our customers didn't feel that they were getting a subpar experience after the migration. What we really wanted to introduce was new customer experiences, a much better one. And it wasn't just a technical lift and shift of a platform, from old platform to a new platform. So having that balance, making sure that it was stable and making sure that the customers are really delighted from this new journey, that was really important for us.

Tony Poulos, TelecomTV (05:27):
Millions of users, national scale, live systems, what were the most challenging aspects of the execution?

Joyce Shia, Telkomsel (05:34):
I think the key challenge here is this is the first time Telkomsel is also working with Circles. And at the beginning, of course, when two people meet for the first time, I think we took a little bit of time to get to know how each other works. And of course, we found our way to work together. And I think a true and strong partnership is what led to the success of this transformation and ongoing successful migration.

Tony Poulos, TelecomTV (06:04):
And how did you manage risk in that environment?

Joyce Shia, Telkomsel (06:07):
It's not an easy one. And I think one of the key ways that we have actually worked together with Circles is just to have a very open and transparent conversation. I think we know exactly where are some of the limitations, and I think we are always pursuing solutions together, how we move forward together. And I think this level of transparency and this level of communication has really helped grow this partnership even further.

Tony Poulos, TelecomTV (06:37):
Joyce, the platform is now live. What changes are you seeing already?

Joyce Shia, Telkomsel (06:41):
We're still in early days. I think we are still seeing more the ongoing migration of the existing customers, but we see the opportunity and the potential is enormous. I think based on what we have seen, the agility in terms of rolling out new products, the capabilities are there. Any key changes that we need to make in terms of business logic, I see that much simpler and much easier to do now compared to how it was in the previous platform. So even though we're just at the beginning stage, but I think we see a lot more potential and future innovation to come together with this platform.

Kannan Alagappan, Circles (07:25):
Kannan, how do you view that shift? Look, I think it's a great partnership. Like Joyce said, we didn't get off to a great start because we had challenges on our end for sure, but I think over a period of time we earned the trust and you earn the trust by delivering. So we had to stand up many teams to get the development going, that was the initial stages. Then we had to figure out how to work with Telkomsel and the process. We have a digital DNA, but this was already an established brand. How do you work together? So that was, like Joyce said, we were able to figure that out. And I'll share certain examples. We also figured out the cost structure, for example, from a cloud perspective. So as you scale and add more customers, it became a little bit challenging. But every step of the way, I'll tell you that we got pushed, we responded together.

(08:19):
And that's the beauty of the partnership. And as a result, I'd say now, Joyce, you have a Ferrari. Don't be afraid to take it out and ride it and talk the business to get it out there. Correct. I think that's where we have to finish the migration, but get this platform, which is a Ferrari, to get out there and start driving.

Tony Poulos, TelecomTV (08:41):
And zooming out, what does this project mean for the broader telecoms industry?

Kannan Alagappan, Circles (08:46):
I think it's game changing because when you think about migrations, everybody's scared about what is it going to do to revenue, right? This is real. What's it going to do to customer expectations, customer experience, and the overall impact to the organisation? So when you're able to do it seamlessly with no downtime, zero downtime, which is kind of what we did, we implement this thing called bridging that allowed us to talk to old legacy systems while we are doing migrations. So it gave us the space to do migration step by step, which kind of removes the anxiety. So I challenge everybody in the industry to think a little bit different and we have the platform and we've proved it. So knock on wood, we have still a couple more iterations to go through, but we are almost there.

Tony Poulos, TelecomTV (09:36):
Joyce, from an operator's standpoint, what do you think?

Joyce Shia, Telkomsel (09:40):
No, I think for us, I think Indonesia is really a challenging market. And as are most markets now, the expectations for our operator are growing higher and higher. They demand better experiences, they demand zero downtime. And I think we're working together to make sure that we meet those customer demands through the new platform that we have.

Tony Poulos, TelecomTV (10:01):
We have. What's next for by.U now that this foundation is in place?

Joyce Shia, Telkomsel (10:05):
I mean, the possibilities are in this.

Kannan Alagappan, Circles (10:07):
100 million customers, I think.

Joyce Shia, Telkomsel (10:08):
Yeah. So I think we really see a lot of potential for by.U. We hope to really reignite some of the creativity that the business has in mind and really drive great customer experiences for the by.U brand.

Tony Poulos, TelecomTV (10:23):
And Kannan, what about Circles?

Kannan Alagappan, Circles (10:26):
Oh, I think we're just getting started, right? So this is a testament to what our platform can do. It is game changing for the industry, and I'm going to challenge everybody out there to think different, and we're just getting started.

Tony Poulos, TelecomTV (10:41):
Thank you to Kannan from Circles and Joyce from Telkomsel for a fascinating discussion. This has been a compelling example of how next generation SaaS platforms are redefining brownfield digital transformation at scale. Thank you for watching TelecomTV. We'll see you next time.

Joyce Shia, Telkomsel (10:59):
Pleasure. Thank you.

Tony Poulos, TelecomTV (10:59):
Thank you.