Interview with Bayan Monadjem

Speaker Interview with Bayan Monadjem, Director Network Planning & Strategic Design at Airtel Africa

CWS: In brief, please describe your organisation and the work it is doing in East Africa.

BM: Airtel is a mobile phone operator, currently present in 16 Africa countries of which 6 (Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Malawi, Madagascar,) are in the East African region (depending on how you define the boundaries of East Africa).

CWS: What would you say is your organisations priority for 2012?

BM: Customer experience management and broadband services rank high in the priority list. Differentiation using traditional methods is becoming more and more difficult; Over time, most operators have also been improving network quality KPIs to within acceptable bands. Enabling new revenue streams and getting close to high value customers through differentiated experience management will become pretty important.

CWS: Which type of services do you think consumers are going to be calling for in 2012?

BM:  Mobile broadband services in different shapes and sizes must top the list. Mobile money and mobile commerce have also been getting a lot of attention and this will likely continue. Greater development of more targeted services (like m-heath, m-agriculture, m-education, etc) will be important to certain segments.

CWS: How important do you think cost-efficiency/reduction is for service providers in East Africa this year?

BM:  Extremely important. Operators who cannot manage and drive down their cost structures will increasingly come under pressure and will need to make strategic investments to bring down operating costs.

CWS: What do you think is needed to improve connectivity for the underserved in Africa?

BM: This will be addressed only through improvement of cost structure (ie improvement in operating efficiency and introduction of other initiatives such as sharing of passive infrastructure) that will drive down cost and open up viability in more and more communities. For the most part though, the % of this population will get smaller and smaller each year. The next frontier challenge in my opinion will be how to deliver mobile broadband to these communities.

CWS: What do you think are the 3 key attributes needed to succeed in East Africa’s telecoms, media and ICT industry going forward?

1)     Focus: Focus to know what you are going to do and also what you are not going to do

2)     Execution: Best in class execution to bring products and services in the market with speed and efficiency

3)     Innovation: Continuously re-inventing yourself to stay relevant and competitive in a fast changing environment.