Left: Ahmet Uysal, Supervisor Social Media & Community UPC Switzerland Right: Mutlu Bütüner, Head of Channel Hardware Management UPC Switzerland
Profile Launch – Mutlu Bütüner / Head Channel Hardware Management
We would like to announce the start of a new era in the community, for which we will call in in-house experts, specialists and leaders. Some, like Mutlu, will have their own profile and offer you content. Others will use various formats to introduce and explain content and news that we consider important or that have been expressed as a wish from within the community.
Ahmet_upc:
Dear Mutlu, welcome to the community. I would like to start with a few questions. Who is Mutlu Bütüner? What did he do before coming to UPC Switzerland? How would you like to introduce yourself?
Mutlu_upc:
I would describe myself as a “telco enthusiast”. I worked at Orange for a long time and did pretty much the same thing that I do here at UPC. Sometimes there were short trips to the USA and Germany, where I worked in the consulting branch. After that I came back to Switzerland and am now at UPC.
Ahmet_upc:
That sounds very interesting. What is your current function at UPC Switzerland? What exactly do you do at our company?
Mutlu_upc:
Our main function is portfolio management, sourcing and selling hardware. This includes, of course, mobile hardware, smartphones, telephones and the associated accessories. But also accessories like covers, Bluetooth speakers, boxes, smart devices and many others.
Ahmet_upc:
Does the area of responsibility refer to Sales as a whole, or is it limited to online and the UPC shops?
Mutlu_upc:
It generally has to do with all UPC channels except B2B, as we do not sell hardware in this area yet. Otherwise, it affects all channels. For everything that counts as hardware, we purchase, supervise, determine prices, plan campaigns and implement them together with our colleagues from Marketing.
Ahmet_upc:
Thank you for elaborating. So what about communities? Are you active in one yourself? In today’s terms, community is not only a platform by that name but, broadly speaking, also all Facebook, WhatsApp and other social media groups. How active are you on these platforms?
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Mutlu_upc:**
I have my social media accounts, like many others of course. I am certainly more active on LinkedIn than on Facebook. I use this more to keep in touch with fellow students from the university. I have an inactive Twitter account. But of course I’m also involved in WhatsApp communities, especially because of the football team. Among other things, I still coach kids at FC Bülach. They are 10 and 11 year old girls and boys in the D-juniors age group.
Ahmet_upc:
I see that you are quite involved in communities after all. So what can the users of this community hope for from your content? Will there be surprises? Will it be more about products or also cover other content from the industry? What have you prepared for our community?
Mutlu_upc:
The primary aim will certainly be to give the community first-hand information about products. Since we naturally maintain very close cooperation and contact with the department and division managers of the various manufacturers through our interviews and gatherings, there will be a lot of exclusive information in this regard, which we will share with the community. An example of this would be the interview we recently had with the Sales Head of Samsung Switzerland, Alessandro Pasquon. As in this case, we will always highlight certain devices and share detailed information about which customer groups are primarily targeted, what the customer can look forward to and what technical specifications the devices will have in detail. We also plan to communicate future promotions and competitions in the community. That would be one of our aims. (The Samsung interview will be available in the community shortly)
Ahmet_upc:
I know first hand that you are also interested in exclusive deals with the manufacturers. You and your team were able to demonstrate this several times, for example with the Samsung Note 10 lite Aura Red, which is only available from UPC Switzerland. Will there continue to be similar campaigns with other manufacturers which will be placed in the community among other places?
Source: upc.ch
Mutlu_upc:
Yes, that is the aim. Already when Xiaomi entered the market we were able to offer the Pocophone exclusively for 3 months, and not until after that was it released to the general market. It was correspondingly well received by the clientèle. We had a similar situation with the Palm, the world’s smallest smartphone. We are of course always interested in working out exclusive deals for the devices, which, as with the Galaxy Note 10 lite Aura Red, include exclusivity across all sales channels. But sometimes the exclusivity is limited to the providers, so that we are the only telecom provider who is allowed to sell the respective device.
Ahmet_upc:
Exciting! You just mentioned Xiaomi. Currently we are sitting in our offices in Wallisellen. Next door is the Glatt Centre with the Xiaomi Store. They also have new devices in the pipeline. Samsung has recently launched its latest flagship with a 108 megapixel camera. Xiaomi also has a similar product. Will your close cooperation with the manufacturers and your presence in the community give us the opportunity to test devices even before their official launch, so that we can prominently introduce and present them on our platform at the same time as the sales launch and promote them to our users with special deals?
Mutlu_upc:
Yeah, that’s the idea. We have already had several meetings with the manufacturers and exchanged suggestions. So you are welcome to examine and test the devices on site in order to be able to share your reports with the community. So we all have an exciting time ahead of us.
Ahmet_upc:
That all sounds great. Thank you very much! All my questions have been answered. Have you got any questions for us? What else would you like to tell the community as a final word?
Mutlu_upc:
I hope that the community will grow even faster. You’re doing a great job and you’re a well established network, which of course reflects the spirit of UPC Switzerland and hopefully also the spirit of our hardware team. This is very important in a fast-paced company and environment, as we experience it every day. The community can look forward to much more news. This year we will certainly put in even more effort to be able to present even more exclusivity and news here.
Ahmet_upc:
Once again, welcome to the community and thank you very much for the great interview. Good luck Mutlu.
Mutlu_upc:
Thanks, Ahmed. See you soon.