Page 63 - SAMENA Trends - September-October 2020

ARTICLE SAMENA TRENDS

COVID-19 Situation: A Stress Test for As always, Telco’s rose to the challenge channels accelerated exponentially.
Telco’s by being backbones of robust and
The whole world was impacted by the strong societies worldwide – which is The Digital Transformation journey though
COVID-19 pandemic, the crisis reshaped undoubtedly something to be proud of as has been nothing short of a roller coaster
lots of business notions, and like any an industry. Telco’s have achieved this by ride for Mobily. Like most of the Telco’s,
change you can choose to simply resist or proving themselves to be agile, decisive legacy infrastructure was one of the key
learn from it, evolve with it to capitalize on and ensuring that networks can cope with bottlenecks to digitalization. Going with
it and that’s what we agreed at Mobily; to the surge in demand. After decades of the approach of a completely new stack
embrace the change and do what we can connecting people, Telco’s finally received had fundamental inherent risks, which
to drive benefit from it for our customers. appreciation as providers of critical not all stakeholders were fully satisfied on
At Mobily, we remained optimistic, there infrastructure in times of need. the implementation implications on the
was no scope for negativity and we didn’t business.
lose confidence in our infrastructure and Going forward, enterprise resiliency
capabilities of our talented dedicated team is by no means certain. Apart from In such a situation, Mobily decided to
members, who faced the most challenging the unforeseen increased demand on follow essential steps and leverage the
demands of their jobs ever with unimagined networks, disruption to frontline staff fundamentals of digitalization – agility,
continuous peak loads. The pandemic (e.g. sales & customer care) and a volatile open source, analytics etc. Within the
was a stress test not only for us but for supply chain is unsettling network rollout agile framework, scrum methodology was
all Telco’s’ capabilities providing SWOT to time frames along with execution of other adopted, which was completely different
leverage on in order to further solidify the commercial plans. The above are all key from using the traditional approach where
business foundations necessary to survive issues to address as we evolve to the ‘new functions are done in a sequence that
and thrive in a digitally powered world. normal’ and reflect back on the lessons may not result in the same benefits being
learnt and their implications on the way realized, or if they are, to a lesser degree.
According to a report by VISA, there was Telco’s operate in the future.
a surge in e-commerce, a preference for The true north shall always be the
trusted brands, a decline in discretionary COVID-19 & Acceleration of Digital customer need, and in a digital world this
spending and a polarization of Transformation @ Mobily: is expressed by the need for simplicity
sustainability. Consumers switched to The crisis situation turned out to be a test in usability. This isn’t luck nor random. It
a larger basket, but reduced shopping of the several pilot programs that Mobily can be scientifically measured in 5 core
frequency and shifted to making purchases was running, which needed ample time to attributes: how to learn to use the system
through digital channels. Triggered by the be scaled up. However, time was not on (learnability), how quick to use the system
COVID-19 pandemic, a change can easily our side, the scalability test came much is (efficiency), memorability, simple error
be detected in Saudi consumer behavior. earlier than anticipated as traffic on digital recovery and satisfaction of use.
Moreover, the crisis accelerated the journey
of the realization of Vision 2030 goals of During the COVID-19, When designing a digital product user
the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with respect experience, the user journeys should be
to digitalization and becoming a cashless despite being one of the designed end to end, starting with the
society. The change in consumer behavior least impacted sectors, bigger picture scenarios, then digging
mandated the majority of businesses to re- Telco’s have found deep down into the details. A significant
think their business model by integrating number of our plans and programs have
with the right technology enablers. Though themselves at the center been purposely designed to deliver in
not to forget that these changes had their of a fast-changing world. the long-term, and the seeds we have
costs too, imposing new financial burdens been planting have started to pay off.
on an already weakened business due to Amidst lockdowns, staying One such testament is our mobile app, a
pandemic and the time required to build connected was in great digital gateway to Mobily’s services in the
and adapt to a new business model. consumers’ hands, that has attained the
demand, in addition to highest app rating from telco customers
Need for Telco’s’ Resiliency: being safe and healthy, in the whole kingdom and all middle east.
During the COVID-19, despite being one as entire populations This is a real reflection of our adherence
of the least impacted sectors, Telco’s to these scientific processes of lean
have found themselves at the center of a were staying home and principles, experience design and usability
fast-changing world. Amidst lockdowns, Telco’s’ traditional & digital engineering whilst focused on the “True
staying connected was in great demand, North”.
in addition to being safe and healthy, as infrastructure became
entire populations were staying home and increasingly essential for Our foundation for the design refresh
Telco’s’ traditional & digital infrastructure day-to-day personal & is based on three experience principles
became increasingly essential for day-to- — Dynamic, Empowering, and Inspiring
day personal & business interactions. business interactions. — which cascaded from Mobily’s Brand

63 SEP-OCT 2020