Ooredoo growing B2B footprint in Middle East, Southeast Asia

Source: Ooredoo website.

Ooredoo is focusing on communication solutions for the business market to grow in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, saying that it means to add to its share of the US$10 billion B2B market at the ITU Telecom World event taking place in Doha this week.

Dr Nasser Marafih, Chief Executive Officer of the Ooredoo Group said: "Our Group strategy is built upon putting the needs of our customers and operations first, and it is clear that an enhanced focus on business services is currently and will continue to deliver strong results for both. Our portfolio ranges from connectivity to cloud and hosting solutions, through to innovative new areas like machine-to-machine communications. We believe that Ooredoo can take a leadership position across our footprint in the B2B market – and our continued investment in business will further accelerate our performance."

Ooredoo has a presence in Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Iraq, Palestine, and Indonesia among other countries. Across its footprint, Ooredoo has seen significant results for its business efforts in recent months. In Iraq, Asiacell has significantly expanded its B2B sales force and winning new customers by creating innovative solutions, such as customised Closed User Groups.

In Indonesia, Indosat is building dedicated channels to meet the unique needs of business customers. For a country that spans 17,000 islands, and has about 55 million small, medium and micro businesses, segmented direct, indirect and retail channel experience is critical to address all types of businesses.

Additionally the cloud is enabling Ooredoo to build industry-specific solutions for the Internet of Things. marketplace quickly. Ooredoo Business is currently implementing a cloud-based machine-to-machine (M2M) platform, which will be launched in a number of its markets in the next quarter and will be rolled out to all countries by the end of 2015. M2M services provide automated tools to our customers to enhance productivity and efficiency in their business processes.

Ooredoo has already seen a number of significant wins in the M2M connectivity field, such as a recent six-year deal partnering to create a traffic monitoring solution for a large government entity, and sees significant opportunity for on-going growth across its footprint.

Dr Nasser concluded: "The launch of the M2M platform is the first in a series of group-wide innovations that will deliver better results for businesses. Mobile and fixed line technology is expanding the horizons of what is possible for companies today, and we believe Ooredoo is an ideal communications partner."