Telenor Pakistan: Empowering Pakistan

Telenor Pakistan is owned by the Norwegian Telenor Group, which is an international provider of voice, data, content, and mobile communication services in 13 markets across Europe and Asia. Telenor Pakistan has a subscriber base of 34 million. In addition, it owns the Tameer Microfinance Bank, which loans money to the poor and is helping development in Pakistan. Recently, ZTE Technologies interviewed Irfan Wahab Khan, Deputy CEO and CMO of Telenor Pakistan. He shared with us Telenor Pakistan's performance, major developments of Pakistan's market, localized services and key focus of Telenor Pakistan. He also talked about the program of "Internet for All", his expectations for ZTE, and visions for Telenor Pakistan.

What major developments have you seen in Pakistan telecom market?

In the Pakistan telecom market, especially since the launch of 3G, the data is really booming. So we see that even though most parts of the country are rural, many people are using data and internet. The local ecosystem is also growing. It is not just the basic entertainment or information, like Facebook; people are using it for other things. They will check the latest articles where they can find the actions, where we can find incredible activities, whether it is health, whether it is education, whether it is agriculture.
So it is our chief contribution that more and more people like using smartphones, and they are using them to improve their lives. In addition, companies such as Telenor, are playing a major role in bringing financial provision, mobile banking, and also other products that we have seen a huge uptake in the local market.

Telenor was established in Pakistan in 2005. How do you assess Telenor's performance in Pakistan over the past 10 years?
Telenor entered Pakistan as the number four operator. Over the past ten years, we kept on increasing our performance. Now, we are one of the leading operators in the market. I think the reason for that is probably that we operate under a very unique culture, so culture is one of the key reasons for our success.
You know, we are able to attract many talents, people who are very smart and intelligent, who are passionate to do something, want to join us, because our vision is empowering societies. Based on that, we were able to build an organization which is around people. We bring smart people together, giving them an environment which is fun but at the same time hard work. That has been one of the main reasons for success.
Our team is very passionate because they see it as a great opportunity to make a difference. There are many opportunities, so we bring a lot of innovation to the market as well. When we launched our services, we launched them at very simple price plans.
We have taken a position where we say that we are transparent and trustable in partnership. Therefore, we don't cheat any customers; we don't have small print charges. We are honest and trustworthy.

Could you elaborate on your marketing strategies in Pakistan?

Our marketing strategy from the beginning is to connect the people; we need to communicate with them. In a word, our strategy is to improve our mass market. We started with a strategy which is "outside in", so everyone was competing in the cities, major regions of Pakistan.
In addition, we also give the portable communication services in the rural areas. As a result, we were able to connect the people. Connecting the people as well as our positioning which we are trustworthy and transparent in terms of price and offers, are our competitive advantages.

What marketing challenges do you face? How do you overcome them?

The market is very complex; there are too many companies, and too much competition. All operators
are trying to give a shock price, so the competition is very tough. And there is no higher differentiation between companies.
So we will have revamped our band around customers. We were making a communication which is easier, so we can reach out at the mass market, and we are saying that we offer them simple prices, and give them full flexibility and sound transparency. However, the challenge is data monetization.
The competition as well as how to make money on data are our two big challenges.

Could you introduce to us Telenor's localized services? How have your subscribers responded to these services?

In terms of local services, we have just started the journey. There is a lot of local and regional content that is really useful, and we keep working on it, whether it is music, education, health, or agriculture. Pakistan is a big agriculture country with 20-22% of GDP contributed by the agriculture sector, 45% of Pakistanis work in the agriculture sector. It is also quite an important sector.
We also have financial services, mobile money. It is a big counting, because 80-85% of people in Pakistan don't have access to bank accounts. We are the first company to give services of mobile banking. Today, we are the largest financial company, and we are serving millions of customers for payment solutions. We have the largest digital money networks in Pakistan.

Voice is transitioning to data service. What are your thoughts on this transition?

I think it is happening globally that voice is transitioning. Voice is still very good for us; it is still very important for our customers in the marginal market. That's why we need to keep bringing more value on the voice service and need to give them content and visual services day by day because in the very near future, voice will just become a commodity from which we can benefit.
That's why we need to keep on building a very healthy digital ecosystem, where we can have different content, different services, and high model capex, so that we can again monetize the services.

How will Telenor improve user experience to seize more market share?

Our philosophy is that customers always come first, so we call ourselves a customer-centric organization. User experience is at our core. We use network promoter score (NPS). In 2014, our interactions with the customers are all marked. Whether it is call center, whether it is our shops or stores, we may find it in pictures.
We also use service design metrologies in whatever we offer, and come with new offers of our products. We pass through that offer to realize our design concept, and it really helps us. Moreover, we  have established a customer experience lab. We can test our products and offers and see how customers respond to them. All we are trying to do is to give a very good customer experience, very good prices, products, services and applications. It is all centered on customers.

How would you assess ZTE's team and solutions? What are your expectations of the cooperation?
I think we have come a very long way in the journey. When we started the network, we had to overcome some difficult situations, but we came a long way as partners, going forward even closer with more collaboration. Ours is not just vendor and operator relationship, but more a partner relationship.
Because our ambition is to become a preferred digital service operator, so we would like to have the same level of experience for our customers. In order to do that, we need to have a partner like ZTE who can enter into the future in terms of the seamless experience on the good sites, and the seamless experience of services using latest technologies. So I would say that this relationship is getting closer and more practical.
We are also doing a lot of pilots together in the market. There are a lot of concepts which we may have ideas from ZTE and from Telenor. Let us work together closely, so that we can customize the market, and then we can expand the market scale later.

What is your vision for Telenor for the next
few years?

Our vision is that ZTE will become our preferred digital service provider, and also a visual service provider. Telenor is going to transition from a mobile telecom operator to a digital service provider.
By doing that, we will empower Pakistan. Then we can really empower people and help them in their lives, making this journey a digital one, because we believe that digital is the future. I believe there are opportunities which will uplift the economy, which can bring revolutions that help education and other sectors for people. I think the future will be very great.
Digital is a very big trend. I think there is a role for us to play in having a digital lifestyle for our customers.
What we looking in digital are content. We are looking at digital money, we are looking at music, we are looking at health and education applications, we are looking at e-commerce, so all the things which we are looking at are not just inside Telenor, nor concrete solutions. We want to have a seamless experience across all things. That's what our customers need.
    And there is also the Internet of Things. We have solutions for our business customers, which are  revolutionary around the industry, such as transportation, supply chain, full portfolio and others.