Sunrise: Digital Transformation Powers Swiss Telco’s Future

Telecommunications providers across Europe face mounting pressure to transform their operations as the market for traditional revenue streams from voice and messaging services is saturated. As a result, the industry’s focus has shifted toward digital services, data management and infrastructure modernisation to meet evolving customer expectations and boost innovation in its core business – connectivity.

In Switzerland, this transformation carries particular weight. The country’s position as a global financial centre, combined with its high concentration of multinational corporations, creates demands for advanced telecommunications infrastructure. As a result, Swiss providers must balance network reliability with innovation while operating within strict regulatory frameworks governing data protection and privacy.

Sunrise – the country’s second-largest telecommunications provider – has responded to these challenges by strengthening the company’s market position through technology modernisation and digital services expansion. The transformation is particularly focused on infrastructure development, digital innovations and customer experience enhancement.

“The demand for digital infrastructure has grown exponentially over the last 20 years, driven by rapid advancements in technology, widespread digital transformation, and the increasing reliance on data-driven services,” explains Anna Maria, Chief Information Officer at Sunrise. “Access to fast and reliable internet connections has become crucial in everybody's daily private and work life, at the same time it is a commodity today, with billions of users worldwide.”

The evolution from structured to unstructured data has pushed providers to adopt new approaches to data handling and AI. Modern telecommunications infrastructure must support video conferencing, streaming services, cloud applications and Internet of Things (IoT)-ready devices.

“Digital transformation is central to any business strategy today,” notes Anna Maria, “with organisations adopting cloud, AI, automation and advanced analytics to drive efficiency, innovation and customer engagement – and all of this based on seamless connectivity provided by most reliable network infrastructures.”

For Sunrise, this landscape presents both challenges and opportunities. The company’s transformation encompasses cloud migration, AI implementation and operational automation, while maintaining focus on its core mission of providing seamless telecommunications services to Swiss residential and business customers.

Digital transformation strategy: Sunrise’s core foundations

Today, Sunrise delivers the highest gigabit coverage in Switzerland through its fixed and mobile infrastructure, positioning itself as a premium service provider in a market known for its demanding standards.

“Sunrise is Switzerland’s leading challenger, with a strong number two position in the Swiss telecommunications market,” explains Anna Maria. “By providing the most comprehensive fixed network access and a world-class mobile network we are delivering the highest gigabit coverage in Switzerland.”

In addition to mobile, landline, broadband and TV services for residential customers, Sunrise provides integrated ICT solutions for business clients, including connectivity, security and IoT services. Each of these services generates valuable data that – when properly aggregated and analysed – can enhance service innovation and delivery and customer experience.

To manage this complexity, Sunrise has developed what Anna Maria calls a “Strong Technological and Delivery Backbone.” This involves using advanced digital tools to streamline processes, ensuring infrastructure scalability and security, and creating new value streams. The company’s CIO unit has implemented a dynamic, iterative operational model to enhance flexibility and rapid delivery, exemplified by its adoption of DevSecOps software delivery practices.

This focus on data management and analysis has led Sunrise to implement a comprehensive unified data platform which aggregates information from multiple sources, including customer interactions, network performance metrics and billing systems – creating a foundation for advanced analytics and AI applications.

“The adoption of AI and ML technologies embedded in applications has become a major business advantage,” says Anna Maria. “By establishing a unified data platform to aggregate data from various sources and using AI/ML models to generate actionable insights for personalised customer experiences, predictive maintenance and fraud prevention and detection, we drive customer retention and loyalty, enable targeted marketing and upselling opportunities and improve customer support efficiency.”

Cloud migration: Modernising telecom infrastructure

A central element of Sunrise’s CIO strategy involves migrating core systems to cloud platforms. The company has partnered with Oracle to implement Exadata Cloud@Customer for operations and billing systems, using a hybrid solution. This allows Sunrise to maintain data within its data centres while accessing cloud computing capabilities.

“The deployment in our own data centres will enable us to retain full control of data governance and adhere to compliance with data security and local regulations,” notes Anna Maria. “Oracle Exadata Cloud@Customer provides data management automation features that help Sunrise increase operational efficiency.”

The company deploys core applications in lightweight containers that can be replicated and distributed easily across servers to handle larger loads. 

“We are using cloud services that allow for dynamic scaling of resources,” Anna Maria explains. “This means that as demand increases or decreases, computing power, storage or bandwidth can automatically be adjusted.”

Recent upgrades in partnership with Amdocs demonstrate this approach in practice. “The key focus areas of this collaboration are customer experience and automation. For example, we recently consolidated our network inventory by expanding our Amdocs stack to support our provisioning automation together with our focus on order management,” says Anna Maria.

"Our collaboration with Amdocs has enabled us to deliver innovative solutions that enhance customer satisfaction and drive operational efficiency. This partnership is a testament to how shared expertise and vision can create impactful results."

The partnership is also exploring new frontiers in AI. “A new focus area will be CRM and product catalogue where Gen AI is re-inventing the way companies interact with business support systems: in the future the system could for example propose adjustments to products based on various data points,” Anna Maria explains.

The company has decomposed monolithic applications into microservices – smaller, independent software components that can be scaled individually. This architectural shift enables more efficient resource utilisation and improved fault isolation.

Enterprise AI implementation: Building future-ready systems

To coordinate AI initiatives across the organisation, Sunrise has established an AI community of practice under Anna Maria’s oversight which focuses on three primary areas: customer care and sales assistance, network operations and employee productivity tools.

“As with any new emerging trend, initially a lot of pioneers in Sunrise started to experiment with AI independently,” says Anna Maria. “To share our experiences and to organise our next joint steps forward, we have created an AI community of practice, governed by the CIO unit but with the contribution of all business units.”

The company evaluates AI initiatives through a structured process. “Many use cases are in progress, at different maturity stages. Thanks to a constant feedback loop – and clear acceptance criteria – we are able to recognise the ones which need to be terminated because they did not prove valueable and the ones with high potential which should be scaled up,” she explains.

Innovation extends beyond AI to include comprehensive digital transformation initiatives. Providing a “Superior Digital Customer Experience” forms a key pillar of Sunrise’s transformation, and it includes comprehensive self-service options tailored to digital-native customers. Sunrise has implemented AI systems across its customer service operations. These include AI-powered chatbots for handling routine inquiries and virtual assistants that support call centre and retail staff with customer interactions.

Ultimately, the company aims to provide a seamless omnichannel experience. “Whether a customer starts a conversation via a chatbot and then calls customer support, or moves from online to in-store, all interactions are integrated and personalised,” says Anna Maria.

Strategic technology partnerships

Sunrise maintains strategic partnerships with technology providersand is also developing what Anna Maria describes as “Scalable Partnerships and Go-To-Market Strategies in New Revenue Areas,” utilising a ‘Plug and Play’ approach for streamlined partner integration. One of the company’s main partners is the Indian IT services firm Infosys. As Anna Maria describes, this partnership extends beyond traditional vendor arrangements to include joint innovation initiatives.

“Our technology partners play an important role in our pursuit of excellence and therefore our partnership approach is a strategic matter governed at executive level,” she explains. “Starting from a transactional vendor approach, Infosys and Sunrise have jointly become much more business outcome driven, with mutual trust and long-term partnership defining the relationship. It is a journey that needs continuous nurturing and alignment.”

The partnership’s scope has expanded significantly since its inception. “From executing the IT transformation required by the Sunrise-UPC merger in 2021, to defining the new microservices based IT architecture, we have collaborated closely in many areas,” Anna Maria explains. “We have launched a new digital engagement platform, revamped our customer order management solution and successfully migrated customers from old to new stack.”

Today, Infosys plays a central role in Sunrise’s IT landscape. “Infosys is responsible for most of the design, build and run of the IT landscape, in a hybrid model where the internal Sunrise team fully retains the strategic lead and know-how to mitigate any sourcing risk,” she notes.

To strengthen this collaborative approach, Sunrise has implemented several innovative practices. “We often conduct design thinking workshops, or encourage flip-shoring, where we assign key people from my team to Infosys development centres in India to run development activities together,” says Anna Maria. “All this helps create a feeling of common goals, teamwork and cultural alignment.” 

Looking ahead, AI is set to form a key component in the partnership’s evolution. “I am excited about the possibilities that AI is set to unleash across the areas that we partner with Infosys. I believe that AI is going to be the X-factor in the digital transformation journey of Sunrise,” Anna Maria explains. 

This focus on AI was highlighted at a recent AIOpenDay event at Sunrise, where technology partners shared ideas and AI use cases.

Anna Maria adds: “One of my takeaways from the session was that AI will have a key influence in critical areas of internal operations, customer care, sales, cybersecurity and network investments. 

“I envision Sunrise leveraging AI pervasively across constituents of our ecosystem. We want to facilitate the lives of our employees and our customers with the introduction of these emerging technologies.”

Future direction

Developments in 5G networks are enabling next-generation applications such as autonomous vehicles, smart cities and Industrial IoT implementations, with Switzerland’s position as a hub for innovation and finance making it an ideal testing ground for these technologies.

“Technology in the telecom industry is moving toward a future of hyper-connectivity, real-time responsiveness and intelligent automation,” notes Anna Maria. These advances are already visible in several pilot projects, where 5G infrastructure supports everything from connectivity to self-driving vehicles and automated industrial systems.

As more use cases emerge, the telecom sector is increasingly collaborating with other industries. “The telecom sector is increasingly collaborating with other industries such as automotive, healthcare, and manufacturing to create new revenue streams and enable innovative services, such as connected cars, remote healthcare and smart factories and cities,” Anna Maria explains.

As networks become more complex and interconnected, cybersecurity has emerged as a critical challenge. The rise of IoT devices, cloud services, and connectivity based applications has expanded the potential attack surface for cyber threats. 

“With the proliferation of connected devices and critical infrastructure relying on telecom networks, cybersecurity is the mission critical: advanced threat detection and response systems, leveraging AI and machine learning, are key areas of focus,” says Anna Maria.

For Switzerland’s second-largest telecommunications provider, the future lies in balancing innovation with the reliability that Swiss customers expect. “Sunrise is committed to continue its focus on delivering exceptional quality and great services at the right cost,” Anna Maria concludes. “The new offers around digital services will mean that our customers will have even more options and services at their fingertips.”