Poised for greater heights:— Roshi Motman
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Tigo Ghana, Ms Roshi Motman (RM), has been awarded CEO of the Year at the 2015 COM World Series AfricaCom Awards held in Cape Town, South Africa, for her outstanding contributions in the telecoms sector. She shares her thoughts about the telecom/ICT sector in Ghana and Africa, and winning the AfricaCom CEO of the Year award with our Assistant Editor, Charles Okine.
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GB: What does this award mean to you?
RM: Winning the award gave me a mix of emotions; gratitude, pride and humility. It has been a fresh boost of energy for me, but most importantly, a confirmation of the remarkable efforts of my team at Tigo Ghana – pure dedication and persistence.
What have been some of your high points of your career since you joined Tigo Ghana 20 months ago?
When I joined this business, my agenda was a total transformation of the entire organisation and by this I wanted us to focus on improving our network quality to offer the best customer experience; and I wanted to improve on our people agenda.
We know from customer feedback that network quality is one of the biggest driving forces in this competitive landscape. It is fundamental to customer satisfaction and loyalty and I am proud to say that over the past months we have invested heavily to ensure a more reliable, stable and resilient network.
Our investments include the US$24 million upgrade of our cell sites in the Greater Accra, Ashanti and Western regions; the US$3.2 million overhead fibre project from Bogoso in the Western Region to Kumasi, Ashanti Region; and the US$1 million expansion works on the Eastern Microwave backbone.
In 2014, we also went into a strategic partnership with world-class communications technology and services provider, Ericsson, to help manage and improve on our service delivery.
All these and other innovations in our product portfolios have improved customer experience.
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On the people side, we have done a lot to nurture and develop our talent pool and to remain attractive to some of the finest professionals on the market. We can boast of some of the best talents in the country.
GB: What have been the challenges to the telecoms sector in Ghana, and across Africa?
RM: The telecoms sector in Ghana is fiercely competitive but ripe with countless opportunities and peculiar challenges.
Over the past two years, we have had major challenges with Ghana’s ongoing energy crisis, battery theft at our cell sites, fibre cable cuts, the depreciation of the local currency, and high inflation rates. All these factors have incurred additional costs for our business and require infrastructural and operational investments.
Across Africa, the biggest challenge will be to continue finding innovative ways to leverage the role of the Internet and digital technology to advance people's lives financially and socially. Essentially, telecom companies will have to predict trends and prepare for them.
GB: How do you see the telecoms sector in Ghana and across Africa developing?
RM: In the recent past we have seen a rapid growth of data and digital innovation fuelled by a budding middle class and fast GDP growth. We expect to see even more of this at accelerated rates. The adoption of smart phones in Ghana will continue to be driven by affordability and data explosion.
Usage of instant messaging platforms like WhatsApp will continue to drive adoption of the Internet.
Two additional developments will be increased partnerships between telecom companies and financial institutions to provide mobile money services to all, particularly the unbanked. This will in turn push mobile financial services to the critical mass.
Increasingly it is also becoming important that as operators we work together to share infrastructure and other facilities. This will reduce our cost of operations and ensure we expand our footprint and continue to offer affordable services to Ghanaians.
GB: What is the way forward for Tigo Ghana?
RM: We have a very clear business strategy for the coming years and this is driven by a deeper understanding of customer needs and the evolution of technology. By harnessing the potential of Tigo Cash and focusing on providing compelling solutions for small and medium-sized businesses, we are set to consolidate ourselves as a smart and attractive brand which will mean our stakeholders and customers will be delighted to do business with us.
We will continue to excite and surprise our customers by staying true to our agenda of being the preferred digital lifestyle brand of choice for consumers.
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