‘I Want To Fly A Plane From Doha To Muscat Someday’
Khalid Ibrahim A Al Mahmoud, Chief Operating Officer, Nawras has been an integral part of the mobile service provider’s success in the Sultanate. Visvas Paul D Karra catches up with him for a tete-a-tete

When Qtel, the Qatari telecommunications company, began its expansion plans its first stop was the Sultanate of Oman, where the telecom sector was opening up. Two of Qtel’s trusted lieutenants – Khalid Ibrahim A Al Mahmoud and Ross Cormack – were sent to Oman as COO and CEO respectively. Their express brief was to compete against a well-entrenched incumbent operator. In December 2004, Omani Qatari Telecommunications Company was registered in the Sultanate and in March 2005, Oman’s second mobile operator was launched under the name Nawras and the rest as they say is telecom history.

Making a mark
Says Mahmoud, “I joined Nawras in February 2005. It was a good opportunity for me as I grew from being a senior manager in Qtel to the rank of a COO. But it was also a challenging responsibility. We were taking on an existing mobile operator and my only experience was with a monopolistic company (in Qatar). Here, it was a new team, different country and a new culture. It was a completely different learning experience.”

Mahmoud’s voice doesn’t betray the tough initial days at Nawras where he had to prove the trust reposed in him. Speaking matter of factly he says, “Today, Qtel has operations in 17 countries but in those days, Nawras was its first foray outside Qatar and all the energies and focus of the parent company was on us. Ross and myself were the only connection to Qtel and we had to fit the factual information into a business plan and communicate it to the group in Qatar. Trying to strike a balance between their expectations and the challenges here was a tough ask, but we managed it.”
Over the past three years, things have changed dramatically. The Qtel Group expanded its geographic footprint from two to 17 countries within the Middle East, North Africa and Asia. The parent company has over 57 million customers and Qtel directors no longer have the bandwidth to focus solely on Nawras.

Vast experience
Mahmoud began his career with Qtel in 1989 after getting an information technology degree from the US. Since then, he has garnered more than 16 years of well-rounded experience in the telecom sector assuming positions of increasing responsibility, ranging from IT, ISP and data management to product management and marketing in Qtel. Mahmoud’s diverse experience has stood him in good stead at Nawras.

As senior manager, product management and marketing at Qtel, Mahmoud’s responsibilities were to oversee management, development and marketing of all wireline services including international, national, data, Internet and many other ancillary products. After the Emir of Qatar signed up with a number of American universities in the late 90s to establish their campuses in Doha, and with the oil and gas sector experiencing a boom, the pressure was on Qtel to establish a world class telecom network both fixed and mobile and to put Qatar on the world map, recalls Mahmoud.

“With my education background in IT, I worked as IT divisional manager at Qtel and was responsible for the IT strategy and introduced significant improvements in critical IT areas such as billing and customer care. Later, as the head of the Internet and data services business unit, I oversaw the implementation of Internet services and overhauling the data network operations,” says Mahmoud.

Corporate business was part of Mahmoud’s profile in Qtel and as such he was exposed to understanding and segmenting corporate consumers – the most demanding segment in the business. Segmenting of the market, means getting more details and knowing what really drives demand. From a supporting role it means knowing the technologies and the financial aspects and packaging of services according to market demands. His experience in this key role played a big role in his nomination as COO of team Nawras by Qtel.

Team work
In Nawras individual roles are not exactly boxed. It’s true teamwork here informs Mahmoud while saying that members of the executive committee share their views about strategic elements and operational management of the company. As per the brief from Qtel, they have to meet their targets and these could be financial, operational or HR driven. Sometimes it is very challenging to meet all of these because of a number of factors like market forces, tough regulatory environment and the constant need to keep abreast with the latest technology, all of which weigh in and have to be delicately managed.

Usually mobile operators have a very short term focus and this is a common pitfall that many of them fall into due to the pressure of meeting short term objectives. “As such most mobile operators are driven by efficiencies and commercial strategies. But if you don’t have a long term vision you will have to do major technology shifts that are very costly and they hit your business.” Fortunately, says Mahmoud, Nawras has got the latest mobile network and is constantly adopting new technology.

Convergence imperative
Being a technology man at heart, Mahmoud forecasts the convergence of mobile and fixed line services. With Nawras having bagged the second fixed line operator licence, he says that Nawras has already gone through the technology shift, adopting what is known as soft core switches which can handle fixed and mobile services seamlessly.

The 3G and wimax (fixed wireless service) are merging into what is known as LTE (long term evolution). This technology means that voice and data will converge into one element and your mobile phone, fixed line and EPABX systems will all function as one. When you are in the office, you will use your landline and when you are out, it will be your mobile. The roadmap is there for all this and it will be out within three-to-five-years.

Talking about the fixed line services, Mahmoud underscores the unique working culture at Nawras saying it has resulted in exemplary performances. The company has always achieved its targets much ahead of schedule. “We have managed to have a successful operation and we plan to replicate it with our fixed line services as well,” he says. Qtel and Nawras are both driven by the overall group vision and reflect the local vision of their respective countries. In Oman, His Majesty’s Vision 2020 is the roadmap and Nawras wants to make sure that the Sultanate is not lagging behind in the telecom sector.

Referring to the fixed line launch, he says, “All the projects are in place and a lot of investments have gone in. I think we will be rolling out our fixed line services in mid-2010. We will be having a separate building for the technical and IT staff somewhere close to our present office. We are of course expanding and growing our mobile segment as well.”

No time to steer
His skills as a trained pilot may have played a part in steering a company like Nawras. Mahmoud holds a flying licence for a small plane. His cherishes the desire to fly a plane from Doha to Muscat someday. “One of things that I would like to do is to come to Oman in one of those small planes. But it is very tedious as you cannot fly in a straight line through Abu Dhabi and Al Ain. A small plane cannot travel at a very high altitude and flying close to the mountains is very dangerous. If you have to avoid those mountains, it may take more than four hours,” he says in jest.

Presently, he commutes every week between Doha and Muscat over weekends. While in Doha he lavishes time and attention on his seven children. He specially cherishes the moments spent with his youngest two children who are twins. When asked whether he has any other leisure activity, Mahmoud avers that he has hardly any time for himself. The only time he gets is, when he goes to the gym to unwind after a stressful day at work.
 

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