Zain finds its voice as last

After years failing to articulate a cohesive, forward-looking strategy, Zain Group this morning detailed an intensive five-year plan aimed at nearly doubling its revenues to US$7 billion by 2019 and investing US$5 billion in network and associated infrastructure CAPEX in order to stay ahead of the curve.

Speaking at the company’s annual Zain Technology Day 2014 event held in Istanbul this week, Group Chief Strategy and Business Development Officer Emre Gurkan detailed a new era that the company is set to enter commencing 2015 and beyond in which it looks to transform into a digital lifestyle organisation.

The transformation, which Gurkan describes as ‘creating another Zain out of Zain’ will be based on the adoption of a 3×4 matrix comprising of fixing the basics within the Group, differentiation, and revenue diversification on one axis, and customer experience, operational effectiveness, business growth, and people development on the other.

From this matrix, six strategic initiatives have been defined within Zain Group, namely customer experience; cost optimization; value management; talent development; Zain Digital Frontier and Innovation; and enterprise, with the aim of helping the company generate US$7 billion of annual revenues by 2019.

“Zain has suffered from too many changes in management, and strategies in recent years, which has led us to under-perform in some areas. Led by the CEO, Scott Gegenheimer, we are have identified four root causes to our below par performance, and these are unique externalities; competition from telco operators; competition from OTT players; and internal challenges. We are addressing these issues and the next stage of our development focuses on differentiating and diversifying revenues to become a leading provider of the digital lifestyle experience,” Gurkan said.

Zain will rely on innovation, digital services, corporate venturing/partnering, growth in smart cities and enterprise services to achieve its revenue growth projections, with many of these activities falling under its Zain Digital Frontier and Innovation initiative that the company launched earlier this year.