Ken Aigbinode, executive vice chairman, ZoomMobile has one passion and that is to sell his brand. This veteran banker turned telecommunications executive is also experienced in corporate governance, corporate re-structuring, marketing, and brand re-positioning. Aigbinode is focused on establishing ZoomMobile as the pre-eminent telecom operator in Nigeria. He spoke to chike onwuegbuchi and hilary okeke on a wide range of issues.

Idea about ZoomMobile

ZoomMobile is the product of the evolution of Reliance Telecom (Reltel). By this, I mean we have customers that we survey from time to time; we have shareholders (new and old) whom we also interface with and of course, our staff and the reaction they get from the market as they push our products. A combination of these factors led to our taking a strategic step towards repositioning our brand. Repositioning the brand requires that we take into cognizance the effect of the name on our label in the pack, particularly when you consider that we have just obtained our Unified License and have become fully mobile throughout the country. We said that it was time for us to re-evaluate our brand, vis-à-vis this positive development. I must say that it was timely because the impact has been very positive. We felt it was the right thing to do to response to our stakeholders who requested this change.

Chinese Company Investing in ZoomMobile

We do not have any direct foreign equity investors in the company today. That does not mean that we do not have that possibility as we keep searching for the best value for existing owners and our customers. There is Chinese involvement in our company in the form of supply of equipment (core network equipment) in the way of management through managed service contract, to oversee our core network elements and ensure that we maintain our quality. Beyond that, there is not a direct equity investment as I already mentioned, from any external party. ZoomMobile is wholly Nigerian owned operator and indeed, effectively wholly Nigerian managed at the most senior level.

Managing New 0707 Series

Those are good questions. You would recall that when GSM was licensed in Nigeria, the Nigerian Communications Commission introduced the eleven-digit numbering plan for GSM operators until unified licensing came into being recently. The erstwhile so called PTOs did not have the eleven-digit numbering plan but with the introduction of Unified Licensing and full mobility for qualified PTOs, the NCC released the 0702 to this unified operators. However, the 0702 string is fairly anonymous. Sometimes it is difficult to tell which network it is coming from. That is quite confusing. It is also in our opinion, perpetuated in the belief that the CDMA operators are opposed to the small operators. We were given the 07023 and other PTOs, who perhaps I am not permitted to mention in this interview, also had an extra digit to the same system. Whereas GSM could be differentiated with 4 digits, CDMA operators, largely the PTOs had to identify themselves with an extra digit, giving us a five prefix numbering plan. For our size today and for the size of our ambitions and aspirations, we thought that we should not be limited to just a million lines; so we applied for a block of 10 million lines. It was the first time that a CDMA operator will be applying for a complete block of line. Perhaps, fortuitously 0707 was available. We applied for it, did not have to pay any premium and I think perhaps, it is the most unique number in Nigeria today. It is easy therefore, to identify us looking at the first four digits: 0707. No longer will any subscriber or caller be confused about the identity of 0707 as no other network in Nigeria will have the 0707 prefix. The 0707 platform signifies our arrival on the scene to play as a full mobility telecom operator throughout Nigeria.

Youth Image of ZoomMobile Brand

As you know, our new name is ZoomMobile; the short form is Zoom and it is registered with the Trademark Commission. The name itself is descriptive and if you like, provocative. It connotes movement, dynamism, desire to move towards an aspiration and in our opinion, the people who exhibit some of these attributes generally are the youths and our definition of the youth is anywhere between 1 year and about 120 years, depending on how your mind works and the goals you set out to achieve and the drive for you to achieve them. Just like our company has been refreshed by this renaming ceremony; just like our profile has been reinvigorated; just like our scope has enlarged; we want to also carry our subscribers (both existing and potential) along on this journey and ensure that we provide the facilitation that will enable those who still have aspirations to whatever it is in life and achieve them expeditiously. As we say in this new era, "full speed ahead." We want to be that ‘wind beneath the wings’ of our subscribers as they all move towards their aspirations and goals.

Building Capacity and Expansion

Today, I can tell you that we have an installed capacity that is upgradeable to 5 million lines. We are in discussion with our vendors to further enhance that capacity to well over 15 million. That implies that we are planning ahead for the envisaged rush for these special numbers. We are very conscious of the quality of service and are not in a hurry to add more subscribers when the capacity is not there to accommodate them and service quality indices that we have internally are great which even the regulator has testified to. Accordingly, these new numbers will be rolled out in batches; we are not going to push out the whole 10 million into circulation; we will match them to the capacity of the network as each city is ready and as capacity improves from city to city. Right now there is rush for the special numbers, very soon we are going to be broadcasting to existing and potential subscribers, the way to get the special numbers. These are numbers that people would like to keep forever but they are limited. There will be the Platinum range, Extra Special, Gold range and the Silver category. But believe me, whether you possess the Platinum, Gold or Silver range or not; the prefix 0707 marks you out as somebody who is serious about what he is out for and it is a unique mark of identity. Interestingly in our religious conscious society and the traditional African religion, 7 is a very important number. People have ascribed perfection to that number and I do not think that we are so far from that. It is spiritually relevant and we will ensure that we live up to expectations of those people who come on the network.

Manpower Development

On the manpower side, we are constantly hiring hands and training as well as retraining. We are making our contributions to various institutions that support ICT. You probably would know that the founding chairman of this company, Senator Anni Okonkwo, has a foundation that is targeted at helping ICT students go through their programmes effortlessly. We have also established a pipeline as well as introduced a conveyor belt that is constantly open to people to come here and do their internship with our engineers. We are working closely with the owners of the CDMA technology, a company called Qualcomm to further develop not only our staff but some bright and upcoming IT students that we have identified. Incidentally, soon there will be a training programme to which we have subscribed and we are sponsoring about 12 candidates to help them boost their skills and capacity on ICT generally but particularly on CDMA which is our chosen technology.

Customer Care Department

We just prepared 15 engagement letters for call centre operators. They will be joining another 40 that we have already hired. We have just established a new call centre in Mainland Lagos and it has the capacity to sit about 120 operators. Our objective is to minimize resort to the call centre; it is to migrate people to where they can interact with our technology using their devices. But occasionally, they are unable to have such interactions and they need to reach a human being. So, we have created that capacity to begin to meet those needs. If we discover that we are becoming more of a call centre than a telecommunication operator, we might then begin to outsource it to people who do it as their primary business. The logic should remain that you should render your services so smoothly that people would rarely have any need to begin to call you and the way to achieve that is to be in constant dialogue with your customers, find out what they need, provide good services and products that are tailored to meet their desires and aspirations. Once that is done, you have created capacity. You address coverage issues; you put into the market devices that are easily understood and are available. I think you will find that the number of people calling into your customer care centre will thin-out over time. I have studied the data coming into the call centre – we have a couple of people calling in to check if it was real and they were pleasantly surprised at the speed of connection and the response from well trained staff handling this area of our business. Like I said, you should actually work towards upgrading the skills of your people and also that of your subscribers to the point where they can easily interact with your systems and get transactions done. We need to save time for every person because ‘time is money’ and Zoom is all about saving time; it is about speed so that people can achieve what they set out to achieve.

New Offering to Subscribers

When we looked at re-branding, one of the considerations that drove that decision was the bouquet of services and products that we are about to introduce and we thought that the kinds of products we want to introduce in the market will be better sold under a stronger brand – a brand that will be suggestive of the attributes and qualities of those products. We are coming to the market with our push e-mail service. It is not entirely new in this market but it has been packaged and sold as something for high net worth individuals; it had been packaged and sold as something that most Nigerians cannot have access to unless they have certain devices. We want to break that and make push e-mail a mass market product and very soon, you will be hearing a lot about that. Our name is ZoomMobile and our tagline is "Full Speed Ahead." We want to enhance voice connection – you should not wait for more than 2 seconds to get connected. You want to have access to the Internet; you should have almost instantaneous connection. When you have made that connection itself, you should have the same experience while surfing because nobody wants to go on the Internet and begin to stare at his screen, waiting for pages to open. Now we are installing EVDO across the country. EVDO is the broadband Internet service on the wireless CDMA technology. It is also not a first, I must say because some other networks have deployed it. However, they have deployed EVDO in just some particular areas. This is why we are taking our time to ensure that when we make the announcement that broadband services are available, every Nigerian in all the major cities where we operate should have access to this service. We are looking at how we can leverage on our technology to assist in the Micro-finance Banking area. Technology is an enabler. Telecommunication, especially in this information age is an enabler of economic transactions. We think that we can bring in our technology – CDMA – which is very data friendly further into ridding Nigeria of cash; pushing us closer to the cashless society like most of the developed and developing countries have done. So, you will be seeing products in that area very soon, which will enable people move cash around, complete transactions without necessarily having to either take risky trips carrying cash across long distances or having to go to banks when they do not need to. You can actually carry out these transactions from your handsets. These are things that are coming to the market and we want to be on the cutting edge of the introduction of services that add real value. If you follow the evolution of telecommunication, it started first with voice. We need to reach the unreached in Nigeria especially the rural areas; every person should have a right to become part of the information age. W have added SMS; we have added some amount of Internet and I think we are getting to that stage where we need to pole-vault ourselves to greater deployment of these technologies, devices and applications that add a lot more value to our lifestyle and businesses.

Expansion Plan

We are hoping to connect about 51 cities and towns, that is, up from the present 36 cities and towns before the end of the year. We would be launching Calabar, Ikot-Ekpene, Ikot-Abasi, Eket and Uyo very soon. Benin, Sapele, Warri would be joining the family in a couple of weeks from now.