“Our customers are now familiar with our digital channels more than ever”
Teletimes: How has 2021 played out so far for Zain Kuwait? What kind of changes are you experiencing as things gradually start returning to normal?
Aiming at preparing our workforce and the organization.
This year has been, to most corporations, a stabilization period after the pandemic. During prior years, we accelerated our digital transformation and tested the degree of readiness of all our digital channels, which we developed and launched long prior to the pandemic. I believe that despite of the pandemic and lockdowns, we became somehow closer to our customers by offering convenient and very easy-to-use channels. Our customers are now familiar with our digital channels more than ever, and the rate at which they interact with us digitally has grown greatly.
The pandemic has accelerated the digitalization of not only government, but also private sectors. Perhaps the biggest sector to have witnessed a wave of digitization during the pandemic was the education sector, where schools and universities adopted full online learning methods. Today, many educational institutions were empowered to continue their core operations using hybrid models of teaching that involve both in-person and online learning. Besides education, another good example would be health clinics, which started offering health consultations via video conferencing tools for visits that do not require in-person presence.
Internally, we have also revamped the way we work, and there have been several adaptations to working remotely, most of which were very successful, but some required us to redesign our policies. A lot of this has been contemplated into one of our strategic initiatives, workforce of the future, aiming at preparing our workforce and the organization (our systems and policies) to the new post-COVID world.
How is Zain Kuwait’s relationship with other business sectors evolving? What’s next for your corporate customers?
As a leader in the telecom sector, we are looking forward to expanding our collaboration with organizations within other sectors like banking, media, entertainment, oil and gas, and education. We are reinforcing our portfolio of services for corporate customers with more solutions that are focused on managed & data center services, digital products, and providing analytics and business insights.
In addition, AI solutions have some very promising results when it comes to customizing products and tailoring them to every customer’s business needs, and we are exploring bringing new AI products to our corporate customers in collaboration with our global partners.
It is important to note that, during the past period of the pandemic, we were fully engaged in connectivity and communication with our customers, society, and nation. We also helped health officials communicate crucial messages by making our resources available, and providing solutions that helped protect the community against the spread of the virus (such as with thermal camera solutions and smart health devices).
Please share some details about Zain’s successful 5G rollout.
I’m proud that our 5G deployment journey was perhaps one of our smoothest and most efficient operations, especially when it comes to the introduction of such a major new technology on a nationwide level and in a relatively short period of time. When we prepared to deploy our 5G network, we did it as a result of a clear strategic guideline: to continue to provide best-in-class data services in Kuwait, and empower a digital lifestyle.
We defined an ambitious deployment roadmap which translated in Zain being the first operator to offer 5G commercially in the country and with the best possible service and widest coverage at launch. Personally, this gives me a great sense of pride in my team who did such a fantastic job and overcame many technical and operational obstacles.
Zain’s successful 5G deployment story started back in 2017 with an extensive plan to prepare our network and upgrade all our physical infrastructure and systems without actually affecting the baseline service level at the time. We were blessed with being fully ready in 2020 when COVID restrictions started in our country, with expanded network capacity and quality within our 5G technology. This meant we were able to absorb the surge in the usage of Internet services during that time. I am very pleased that technology has helped our people and the nation when it was needed the most.
Working with our 5G partner, Huawei, we were able to design a step-by-step project plan with some tight deadlines, but without sacrificing any quality standards for our customers. This was not an easy task, but with a very detailed roadmap and with the highly skilled team we have in Zain Kuwait and our partner Huawei’s expertise, the deployment went smooth and exceeded our schedule. We were able to launch the service in one year, instead of the originally planned three.
Kuwait is a country known for being an early adopter and a frontrunner when it comes to technology, and we are proud to be a part of this success. Our focus has not only been on coverage, but also on strong network robustness and reliability. Such is our passion that, on the official website of the Communication and Information Technology Regulatory Authority (CITRA), anyone can see how each operator network is performing, and Zain Kuwait has the best results consistently.
Adding to that, last year Zain received ‘Kuwait’s Fastest Fixed Broadband Network’ award for Q1-Q2 2020 from Ookla, the global leader in transparent Internet testing applications, data, and analysis. This achievement reflected our efforts in offering the largest and most powerful 5G network in Kuwait since launching it back in June 2019, and it is a testament of our success in designing the first integrated network for 5G services built on a world-class infrastructure, ultimately transforming the telecom sector across the country and region.
Would you like to comment on the role of supply chain partners in the improvement of telecom networks, especially when it comes to 5G? Who are your key partners in 5G and how are the contributing?
Kuwait is one of the first countries that have launched 5G in the world, and we are proud on being the first to launch 5G within the country itself. Without a doubt, this millstone was not possible without the robust relationship Zain has with its supply chain partners.
Throughout the past period, we worked hand in hand with our global partner Huawei to periodically deploy and upgrade our cell towers to cater for our ongoing expansion and to maintain our leadership in 5G. We used a phased approach, first to provide mass 5G coverage country-wide and then to target the expansion of our 5G capacity, prioritizing those areas where we could see our demand growing faster. We experienced a lot of challenges during this process, especially during times of lockdowns due to the pandemic, and our supply chain was pressured, but we managed to go through this with the help and commitment of our partners.
Of course, with the pandemic, mobile operators across the worlds experienced a tremendous increase in their data usage. At Zain Kuwait, we decided to further accelerate our 5G deployment to cater for this surge on demand and to maintain the highest quality for our customers, shortening the implementation to one year rather than the originally three-year plan. Huawei’s vast expertise and agility was a key factor is making this deployment a success in a relatively short period of time.
How would you position Zain Kuwait in the local market?
As we near the end of 2021, Zain Kuwait continues to be the leading digital service provider in terms of customer base, network infrastructure, and customer experience, all of which has reflected well on our financial performance. We have transformed from a telecom operator into a full digital service provider and lifestyle enabler. We constantly explore new ways of bringing the products and services that matter the most to our customers’ personal and professional needs.
For example, if you take a look at our e-store today, you’ll find it to be vastly different than it was just a few years ago. Today, our offerings range from the latest smartphones, tablets, Internet devices, gaming consoles, smart TVs, smart home devices, health tools and wearables, and beyond. Our branches also offer a wide range of electronics, gadgets, and accessories. Today, tailoring our offerings around our customers’ needs is what gives us the edge in a highly competitive market. Looking forward, our product portfolio keeps expanding to empower more of our customers’ digital lifestyle.
At Zain, we see ourselves as a risk taker, which is especially relevant when being the leader in a market. We strategically study the risks to get out with every business opportunity that comes along with these risks. For example, Zain is the first operator in the region to complete a tower share transaction, something that supported our expansion and helped us to focus more on our digitalization and innovation.
We are proud that our leadership in the market was recognized by many of our partners recently. In 2020, we received three international certifications from Cisco, our partner and the global leader in telecommunications and networks technologies. The certifications reflected Zain’s commitment to offering the latest and most advanced digital solutions as per the highest international standards for our customers in Kuwait’s business sector.
The first certification acknowledged our capabilities with respect to Cisco’s HCS solutions over the cloud in the Kuwaiti market, while the second one affirmed Zain’s capabilities in offering the latest advanced cloud and managed services to corporate customers. The final certification recognized Zain as a Premier Certified Partner of Cisco, a title we are proud of.
We take a lot of care into making sure that the bundle of services and solutions we offer to our corporate customers in collaboration with our partners aims at raising operational efficiency and increasing productivity for businesses while also providing high levels of security.
Please shed some light on Zain’s digitalization strategy, especially during the pandemic.
As I mentioned before, we started working on our digital transformation way before the pandemic, and our front-end channels had been completely digitalized and revamped before the start of 2020. The pandemic acted as an accelerator to migrate our customer base from traditional channels to our digital interfaces.
With our physical channels suddenly closed due to lockdown, we had to communicate to our customers and showcase how easy it is to use our alternative channels, which we have also done through our digital and social media campaigns and with direct targeted communication.
However, we knew that some of our customer segments were still not able to transition fully to using a digital platform and they needed human interaction, so besides our fully operational call center, we tactically deployed field sales agents working for each designated area during lockdown. This example, among many, has given us valuable key learnings that we intend to apply in our digital transformation going into the future. This has also definitely promoted the digital registration and on boarding of our customers.
But overall, our customer migration to digital channels was successfully achieved and our digital channels performed exceptionally well, handling all the load without any interruptions. This has proved that our digital strategy, and our execution, had paid off.
Many of our readers would be interested in your sustainability and social responsibility strategies. Would you like to share some of your efforts in this area?
The past 18 months have been exceptional, having presented numerous health, economic, and social challenges to the entire world. With the year closing, we found ourselves to have reflected a spirit of national unity and commitment in the social sustainability values we have adopted a year after another.
Zain was one of the very first national organizations that supported the country’s efforts in combating the COVID-19 pandemic since the first few days of the crisis back in March of last year. We made our human and tech resources available to shoulder the public sector and maintain the nation’s wellbeing. We also launched numerous social awareness campaigns aimed at elevating the health and safety of the community. Not only that, but we were also keen on continuing our support of social, educational, and cultural initiatives – which we have always been a top supporter of – in a virtual format this time to adhere to official health measures and guidelines to keep everyone involved safe.
Looking forward, our key sustainability interests cover many core sectors, and I’d like to shed some light on our efforts towards the environment. Sector wide, we are collaborating with the GSMA on numerous initiatives to get our industry’s NetZero strategy. The GSMA is aiming to reach net zero operations by 2050, and we are currently in the process of developing our own 10-year strategy that outlines how we plan to reduce emissions and reserve natural resources at Zain. It is not easy to adapt to this concept in our region, but it is achievable if we really believe in our role as leaders.
We see climate change as a serious issue that need immediate action. Temperatures in Kuwait and the entire world have been rising beyond average, and many experts warn that they are expected to rise even more unless instant action is taken globally. In our hands, we have already started initiatives such as planting trees, developing a seeds bank, reducing power consumption, and execute better waste management. And, of course, this would not be implementable without the full support of the government. We also use the value and influence of our strong brand to enhance awareness within our society.
This year, we started the process of stopping the use of most unrecyclable materials in our stores as much as possible. We have also printed and donated over 100,000 bags that were made using recyclable materials. We are continuously running awareness campaigns to inform our employees and retail partners of sustainable practices.
It is worth mentioning that we are also using our digitalization strategy to achieve our sustainability goals. By collaborating with our partners, such as Huawei, we are in the process of applying AI solutions to optimize energy use at base network sites, resulting in improved consumption rates and less emissions.
Moreover, the pandemic has acted as an innovation accelerator, where programs of private and public sectors are in a state of internal acceleration. Companies, including Zain, are now cultivating youth talents, embracing innovation, and shouldering SMEs more than ever, and we are using the innovation, creativity, and enthusiasm of our youth to promote our Green Strategy and build momentum in our sustainability initiatives.
