Sri Lanka well served by telecom industry; Etisalat says committed to be a big player

Sri Lanka is well served by the telecom industry and Etisalat having made its own contribution so far including several pioneering initiatives is committed to remain a big player, according to its Chief Commercial Officer Robert Lee.

“We are on an aggressive roll out of our unique flagship stores thereby reaching out to more people with our quality products and services,” declared Lee in an interview with the Daily FT.

Having established its first flagship store in Galle Road, Colombo 3, Etisalat has already opened 14 such stores and hopes to expand the footprint to 40 by the year end and to about 60 during 2014.

Some of the locations of Etisalat flagship stores are World Trade Centre, Town Hall, Duplication Road, Malabe, Moratuwa, Borella, Maharagama, Galle, Kandy, Mt. Lavinia, whilst Ja Ela, Ratnapurua and Kiribathgoda are some of the other upcoming venues.

Revamping and upgrading its existing sales and service access points, Etisalat has transformed these centres to state-of-the-art flagship stores to provide an innovative and comprehensive service to its rapidly growing customer base. 

Etisalat Flagship stores

The Etisalat Flagship stores feature an Experience Centre displaying cutting-edge products aimed at enhancing lifestyles and empowering individual mobile communication needs. The Store allows customers to experience these products first-hand with useful insights from trained customer services personnel. It also includes a Customer Care Point where products and services can be purchased as well as a Billing Centre where bill payments can be made.

Additionally each Flagship store hosts Etisalat’s signature Android Forums, where in depth sessions on the Android operating system and capabilities are showcased to the public. 

Lee said Flagship stores enables existing Etisalat subscribers to experience new technology thereby upgrade their phones or services whilst prospective customers can touch and feel innovative solutions. Indeed Etihad’s slogan ‘It’s About You!’ is a perfect fit for the flagship stores as they provide an array of services to match the hearts of its customers.

“The Etisalat Flagship Store is a refreshingly unique way for customers to interact with us and experience our innovative products and services. As always, the ambience in the Flagship Store has been specifically created to inspire customers, while they discover new technologies that add value to their mobile communication needs,” Lee emphasised.

The flagship stores complement the company’s direct relationships with major distributors and dealers who provide Etisalat a foothold in over 7,000 points of sale.

Etisalat’s legacy in Sri Lanka is the pioneering mobile telecom service Celltel in 1989 followed by Tigo after which the UAE’s largest telecom company Emirates Telecommunication Corporation acquired the local operations from Millicom in late 2009. A multinational, blue-chip organisation, Etisalat has operations in 15 countries in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Its annual revenues are over $ 9 billion.

Since the official launch in February 2010, Etisalat has now grown to a base of around 4.5 million subscribers and Sri Lanka is now an integral part of Etisalat’s growing international footprint with a base of over 100 million subscribers.

Lee, who hails from Canada and accounts for over 20 years of experience in commercial operations from Australia, Malaysia, Jordan, Algeria, Tunisia, UAE, attributes Etisalat’s success in Sri Lanka for its customer centricity though quality and value creation. This has indeed made Etisalat’s operations profitable in Sri Lanka.

Quality and speed

He credits Etisalat’s success thus far to consistently providing outstanding quality and speed. “We are not the biggest but customers expect better quality and speed. As a full service carrier we have delivered on multiple platforms voice, data and digital,” he added.

Having joined the company in January 2012 Lee emphasised that Etisalat is committed to expand further with value offerings in Sri Lanka which has achieved considerable penetration in terms of basic telephony.

“I would say Sri Lanka is well served with telecommunication services. 3G is the baseline now and its roll out across the country is taking place with 4G on order. With the rapid growth in mobile devices such as smart phones, tablets and pads and their increasing affordability are creating new opportunities as well as challenges to serve better with quality,” noted Lee who commenced his telecoms career with the launch of Telstra Australia’s GSM network in Melbourne Australia. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Applied Science from RMIT, Australia.

Prior to taking up duties in Sri Lanka, Lee was the Chief Executive Officer of Sale – Co in Bahrain.  He functioned as the Chief Commercial Officer at Zain Saudi Arabia, and held various positions with Orsacom Telecom including CEO of OT Tunisia, CCO of OT Algeria, Mobilink Pakistan, and Fastlink Jordan.

He spent the last 14 years working in the Middle East and African Markets. In addition to his experience in commercial operations, he acquired experience in profit and loss management, multi-channel distribution, marketing strategy and communications.

Commenting on his Sri Lanka stint, Lee said he is excited to be here and organic growth has been good amidst challenging times. He also commended the fast improving infrastructure across the country and improving per capita income as well as future plans of the Government.

Lee also opines that rapid expansion of mobile devices will enable accessing internet anytime anywhere and will help bridge the digital divide faster. In fact Etisalat is credited for being the first in the industry to value and aggressively promote android smartphones two years ago.



4G LTE-FDD

In March this year Etisalat signed an agreement with Alcatel-Lucent, to deliver 4G LTE-FDD (fourth generation long-term evolution frequency-division duplexing) technology network to Sri Lanka as part of taking another step towards delivering really fast mobile internet connectivity.

The technology deploys Alcatel-Lucent’s ‘lightRadio’ solution to enhance and expands current infrastructure to provide customers with high-speed mobile broadband.

The deal on 4G LTE-FDD comes on the back of Etisalat having launched Dual Carrier HSPA+, (DC-HSPA+) technology in August last year for the high speed mobile broadband market.

Via its 4G LTE services, Etisalat will enable customers to experience cutting-edge broadband connectivity in terms of fast Internet access, mobile TV applications, video streaming and video calls.

LTE networks enable the fastest speeds commercially available for mobile networks, accommodating multimedia applications such as video conferencing, high-definition content transmission and high speed video downloads from social networks.

Digital services offering

Lee pointed out that going forward digital services offering will be critical and Etisalat is addressing it effectively. “Digital content is the future be it entertainment, ecommerce, banking,” he said adding the company is harnessing skilled local talent in delivering creative solutions.

Etisalat is also credited with several pioneering initiatives in reaching the greater community as part of empowerment and bridging the digital divide. Etisalat has been progressive in the domain of communication innovation through Sri Lanka’s first eBook store Etisalat Book Hub, the Etisalat Web Patashala initiative (together with the State Trading Corporation and Ministry of Education) and AppZone, involving individual app developers and the industry software developers.