Telecommunications Giant, MTN Ghana, held a media and stakeholders’ forum in which the company shared insights of its operations, trends within the telecom industry and the future direction of the company.
Chief Executive Officer of MTN Ghana, Selorm Adadevoh, in a presentation, spoke on the theme: ‘Building platforms to deliver a brighter future for Ghana and beyond’. His presentation covered six main areas: who we are, repositioning our brand for Africa’s progress, Transform the network for the digital drive, improving customer experience, Doing tomorrow today, and Our people.
The CEO also touched on industry performance, as well as corporate social responsibilities and MTN’s contribution to Ghana’s economy in terms of tax payments las year.
Mr. Adadevoh said MTN is Ghana’s leading mobile operator providing voice, data, Fintech, digital, enterprise, wholesale and API services. He noted that the strategic intent of the company is to make digital solutions for Africa’s progress.
Ambition 2025
Speaking on Ambition 2025, the CEO pointed out that Ambition 2025 was launched last year to drive digitization of the company. To enable the entire ecosystem in which the company operates and not just looking at MTN as a digital operator, according to him, is the direction the company is going as captured by its Ambition 2025.
“At the start of COVID, our strategy at the time was to become a digital operator by the year 2023. Once COVID hit, we recognized that digitization itself has accelerated by 3 to 5 year on average and therefore, our ambition to become a digital operator was no longer as relevant based on the changes we have seen in the world.
“The second thing was that, we also realized that to become a digital operator means we are transforming MTN as an entity. To become a digital operator means we focus on the digitization of business as a single entity. However, to become a platform business, that’s what Ambition 2025 seeks to achieve”.
Selorm Adadevoh
Mr. Adadevoh indicated that MTN’s belief system remains the same – Everyone deserves the benefit of a modern connected life. There are four strategic priorities under Ambition 2025 namely; to build the largest and most valuable platforms: to drive industry leading connectivity operation; create shared value; and accelerate portfolio transmission.
He explained that creating shared values means looking beyond the business and finding ways to impact society and ESG will be a key feature in this regard. He said the environment is also very important as far as the company’s shared value principles are concerned. The CEO further explained that the focus to create shared value goes beyond just the company’s shareholders to cover other stakeholders as well.
The CEO disclosed that MTN Ghana has five key platforms – Fintech, Ayoba, enterprise services, network as a service, and API market places which are software connectivity to other platforms. The CEO underscored that at the heart of the company’s ambition is driving digital financial inclusion in the country.
Last year’s performance and beyond
“Last year was a great year for us. We have 25 years of existence in terms of MTN Ghana and we recognized that the 25-year journey is mixed; very impactful and challenging. There were different challenges that we had to overcome in partnership with all of you that are here today”.
Selorm Adadevoh
Mr. Adadevoh gave a summary of how the tech giant marked its 25th anniversary with several activities tailored towards celebrating with stakeholders. He assured that MTN continues to work with relevant stakeholders to ensure that it brings services to the doorstep of customers and also help people solve problems close to where they are.
He pointed out that the company has introduced 206 touchpoints in addition to traditional contact centers that it has to make it easier to address concerns of customers.
“The objective of this scheme is to make accessible to every community where customers exceed about a thousand. You will see this in those communities”.
Selorm Adadevoh
The CEO lamented that the cost of fiber cuts continues to be a major challenge facing the industry and called for support from the general public to address the challenge so as to ensure efficient service delivery.
Mr. Adadevoh touched on the ongoing projects for this year including the Bright Scholarship Reloaded launched a couple of weeks ago which has a renewed focus on scholarships for university students, focusing specifically on STEM. “As most of you know, scholarships for students have been a key focus for us and we continue to support in this space”, Mr. Adadevoh said.
There are other projects within the health and education sectors that the company is currently undertaking, some of which are expected to commence in the second half of the year. The virtual stakeholder meeting was attended by representatives from government agencies, the media and MTN Ghana employees.