Umniah’s Chief Commercial Officer Zaid Al-Ibrahim in an interview with PETRA

2022, Amman, Jordan: Umniah Chief Commercial Officer Zaid Al-Ibrahim confirmed that Umniah’s top priorities for 2022 to 2025 are to continue investing in infrastructure, with a focus on fiber-optic technology, and to expand the portfolio of Internet and communications services that the company provides to both its corporate and individual customers. Furthermore, it will continue its support to the country’s economic sectors, Jordan’s digital transformation efforts and the goal of achieving sustainable and comprehensive development.

In an interview with Jordan News Agency (Petra), Al-Ibrahim explained that Umniah, as a way of providing added value to its customers and heightening their experiences, has made huge investments in its network, creating an even stronger infrastructure by adding 350 new towers across the country, especially in the southern governorates, including Madaba, Karak, Maan, Aqaba and Tafila to ensure wider coverage. Al-Ibrahim added that the company’s partnership with Ericsson, one of the world’s largest providers of network solutions, will help Umniah meet the increasing demand for mobile broadband communication services for its corporate and individual clients, improving the performance and efficiency of the network and furthering its ability to handle the increase in data traffic.

According to Al-Ibrahim, Umniah’s partnership with the Jordan Electric Power Company (JEPCO) led to the founding of Fibertech in 2019, which offers advanced fiber-optic infrastructure for high-speed Internet services to homes, companies and facilities in most governorates, and is expected to reach more than 1.1 million homes and businesses by the end of 2022.

Al-Ibrahim also acknowledged that Umniah’s strategy recognizes the business sector as one of its main pillars and will build a new Tier III data center to offer the banking sector, enterprises and organizations the services they need. Umniah also owns and runs the Security Operation Centre (SOC), which delivers data protection services for companies and has also partnered with several Jordanian universities to establish cyber security academies due to the increasing demand and need for this specialization in both the local and global market.

Speaking about digital transformation, Al-Ibrahim explained that it is an important part of the annual performance measurement criteria to provide and automate the largest number of services to subscribers, which saves time by eliminating the need to visit the company’s branches or showrooms and reduces pressure on employees. To that end, Umniah partnered with Huawei to migrate its legacy billing platform to a new convergent billing that works across the spectrum of networks to provide an improved customer experience, shorter time-to-market, and the realization of better business and operation responsiveness through a single billing platform for a more unified experience. According to Al-Ibrahim, the first phase of the automation of the call center and customer relationship management (CRM) project is nearly complete and ranks as one of the most important projects implemented by Umniah this year.

Umniah became the first operator in the region to shut down its second-generation (2G) network in order to upgrade and invest in its existing 3G and 4G networks, a first by a telecom in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Umniah’s advanced 3G and 4G networks provide subscribers with higher quality calls, faster data, smooth transmission between voice and data and extended coverage with enhanced network stability.

He added that the company has invested heavily in self-service applications that allow users to manage their accounts through the Umniah app with ease. The company has also deployed more than 55 self-service machines that work 24/7 both inside Umniah showrooms as well as at strategic locations that allow users acquire recharge cards at their official prices, pay bills for Umniah services or through eFawateercom, in addition to offering UWallet services including depositing and withdrawing cash, transferring funds and making payments.

Al-Ibrahim went on to say Umniah’s subscribers are nearly three million in various services and all business sectors, individuals and enterprises, Moreover, the company enjoys 30% of the Internet market share.

Speaking about how Umniah resolves complaints about its Internet services, Al-Ibrahim indicated that they are taken very seriously in light of the importance of the service. He added that the company has dedicated a specialized team to follow up on Internet complaints and should they fail to solve the problem, complaints are then passed on to a technical team that is able to identify and solve the problem remotely. There is also a team of engineers who handle more difficult issues on site and may provide subscribers with an alternative subscription until the problem is resolved and service is restored.

According to Al-Ibrahim, this year Umniah was once again recognized with the International Standard for Quality Management – Customer Complaint Management ISO10002:2018 certification that focuses on the company’s ability to apply quality in its work by setting effective guidelines for managing complaints and meeting customer needs and expectations. The company also received the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission award for the best operator in the category of handling customers complaints and beneficiary satisfaction.

As a way of further empowering youth, Al-Ibrahim said that Umniah recently launched the updated version of its USales app, which aims to help young people earn additional income by providing them with flexible job opportunities in the field of home fiber-optic sales, adding that this will contribute to reducing unemployment rates in the Kingdom.

In line with its commitment to enrich the lives of the communities that it impacts, Umniah launched Forsa, a CSR initiative that focuses on renovating and repairing playgrounds in more than 50 schools, according to Al-Ibrahim. He went on to add that the company has completed restoration works at five schools in Amman, Irbid and Zarqa, and this year will focus on 10 schools in the southern regions.

Umniah launched Forsa in recognition of the importance of physical education in the national curriculum, helping students develop their mental and physical skills. The company conducted a survey and determined that a number of government schools do not have suitable playgrounds for physical education and sports activities due to the lack of sufficient space. After school closures as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, which led to inactivity and increased screen time among students, Umniah seized the opportunity to help schools through Forsa. Schools were selected according to stringent criteria, including readiness, space availability, number of students served by the school and the presence of a physical education teacher on staff.

Al-Ibrahim said that the Forsa initiative will be implemented over the course of five years in partnership with the Ministry of Education and Madrasati and will also provide new volunteer opportunities, with participants helping in school beautification projects including planting and painting and conducting workshops, as well as other opportunities through the Nahno platform,

the platform for the national youth engagement and volunteering platform launched by the Crown Prince Foundation.

Al-Ibrahim went on to highlight some of the company’s most prominent projects and initiatives in support of the education sector over the past years, including the school’s connectivity project which is one of the largest projects implemented by Umniah in the Middle East. The project targeted about 3,500 schools, in addition to 43 directorates and 76 administrative buildings, reaching 1.3 million male and female school students and 100,000 Ministry of Education employees, delivering free safe Internet, increasing the efficiency of the educational process and accelerating learning through modern technology methods.

Umniah also implemented the Healthy Schools Program in partnership with the Royal Health Awareness Society (RHAS) which saw the telecom pledge to support five government schools in Zarqa and Irbid over a period of five years, promoting healthy practices for about 4,500 male and female students and nine teachers. Additionally, the Student Support Fund at Jordanian Public Universities, affiliated with the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, holds 4% of Umniah’s shares which provides loans and grants to students in Jordanian universities who are otherwise unable to complete their university studies.

Al-Ibrahim also spoke about the fundamental role played by Umniah’s business incubator, The Tank in supporting entrepreneurs, startups and students with innovative ideas, helping them turn their ideas into productive and income-generating projects.

He also highlighted the work of the Youth Unit team, which offers paid internship opportunities to university students at the company’s departments and has so far has trained more than 3,000 students.

In February 2019 and to mark International Mother Language Day, Umniah launched The 8Log, a first-of-its-kind blog as a way of enriching the availability of original Arabic content on the Internet. Today, the blog offers rich and diverse Arabic content and has a writing competition for Jordanian university students in a bid to discover and showcase talented writers.