Ooredoo sees strong results from successful rebrand

Six months on from the beginning of its global brand transformation process, Ooredoo continues to build on its promise to take its business to another level, according to Group CEO, Dr. Nasser Marafih, speaking at the GSMA Mobile 360 Conference in Dubai.

In February 2013, Ooredoo launched its new brand at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. An Arabic word that means “I want,” Ooredoo set itself the target of inspiring people and supporting its customers’ dreams and aspirations.

Since then, Ooredoo has started the roll-out of the new brand across its footprint, aiming to adopt the new brand globally throughout 2013 and 2014. The home market of Qatar was the first operation to become Ooredoo in March 2013. This has been followed by the Tunisian operation’s first use of the combined brand – as “Tunisiana Ooredoo” – in September 2013.

Ooredoo’sre-branding work focused on human growth has seen the company launch a range of sustainable initiatives designed to support people across the communities it serves. 

Dr. Nasser Marafih, Group CEO, Ooredoo, explains:  “As part of the transformation into Ooredoo and our vision to enrich people’s lives, we’ve concentrated on four key aspects: enabling youth, championing women, empowering underserved communities, and catalysing entrepreneurs and small businesses. Since February, we have launched life-changing initiatives to improve lives through mobile technology, and to put our brand promise into action.”

One area where Ooredoo is reaching out to underserved communities is in the field of mobile finance. Recognising the potential social and economic benefit of providing the un-banked with basic financial services via mobile, Ooredoo has focused on underserved communities across its footprint. From expatriate workers in Qatar through to people in rural Indonesian communities, wheremore than 600,000 customers are now sending money through Ooredoo services, withOoredoo Mobile Money (Qatar), mobiflouss(Tunisia), and Dompetku(Indonesia).

Working to empower women, Ooredoo hasleveraged mobile technology to enrich lives and enhance inclusion throughout 2013.  Most recently, the company announced a new partnership with the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women to extend the benefits of mobile technology to underserved communities and support women’s entrepreneurship in Myanmar. They are developing a franchisee model to enable 30,000 women to become entrepreneursby 2016, by selling prepaid Ooredoo airtime in their communities.

Encouraging healthy living and reaching underserved communities, Ooredoo is rolling-out mobile health clinics to reach two million children by 2016, in partnership with global brand ambassador and football star Lionel Messi and his Leo Messi Foundation.

Using the popularity of football, Ooredoo is launching a group-wide community football coaching programme with football clinics for youth, as part of the recently-announced sponsorship of French football team Paris Saint-Germain.  In Tunisia Ooredoo is also sponsoring four champion football clubs as well as six regional football teams. This is supported by a range of grassroots initiatives, aiming to engage with the aspirations of young people.

The company is continuing to invest in both the technological and human resources that are essential to transform the customer experience. Every operation in the Ooredoo group has a customer experience programme driving specific improvements based on detailed customer insights and the company is transforming its processes to recruit, retain and develop the best talent.

On the technology side, Ooredoo’s companies are connecting millions of people to the fastest-possible mobile networks. Ooredoo has launched ultrafast 4G LTE mobile broadband networks in Qatar, Oman, and Kuwait, and is conducting trialsin the Maldives. Ooredoohas rolled-out 3G in Tunisia and the UMTS 900Mhz 3G network in Indonesia,and its subsidiary Nedjma received a 3G license for Algeria in October 2013.

Launching ultrafast fibre optic networks has been a key priority for Ooredoo. Thanks to the rollout of Ooredoo Fibre to the home, Qatar had the world’s-fastest rollout of a fibre optic network in 2012, according to global management consulting firm Arthur D. Little.

Fibre for businesses is already enhancing the business communities, especially small- and medium-sized enterprises, in Qatar, Oman, Tunisia and Indonesia.

Ooredoo’ s bold transformation programme received the highest accolade earlier this month, when the company won the Gold Award for “Best Brand Experience Event” at the 2013 International Business Awards, known as “the Stevies”.

Dr. Nasser concludes: “So far 2013 has been a remarkable year of transformation and growth for Ooredoo, and we are committed to rolling out further the benefits of our evolution with our customers.We are not a technology or a telecom brand, but a community-focused brand that is committed to enriching people’s lives.”