In a bid to drive infrastructure building and services across its business in Africa, Huawei, a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider and Etisalat, a telecommunications service provider in the Middle East and Africa, has signed a strategic partnership on IT outsourcing at the GSM Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.
The agreement which is the first IT outsourcing program that would be implemented in Africa region would lead to “the transformation of the telecommunications industry in Africa.” It will see Huawei responsible for the operational management of Etisalat Nigeria’s IT services across Technical Infrastructure, Application Management and User Support while the Business Planning, Architecture and Governance will be retained by Etisalat Nigeria.
The decision to outsource aspects of the company’s IT function is in line with the adoption of a new model that effectively aligned with the corporate vision of creating more value for customers by improving quality, reducing costs, embedding innovation, and increasing the speed of delivery, Etisalat Acting CEO, Mr. Matthew Willsher, said.
According to Willsher, “There will be radical changes with the signing of this agreement. There will be improved quality of service. There will more in mobile health, education, mobile money among others.”
He said, Huawei will strategically contribute to its telecoms business success with professional service capabilities, adding that the agreement will further deepen the relationship between the two companies.
Huawei established a regional network operation center (RNOC) in Lagos, Nigeria in 2013. The RNOC is capable of maintaining all the Huawei networks in Africa continent. The IT outsourcing program is therefore expected to improve the quality of service (QoS) in Nigeria.
Mr. Pang Jimin, the Managing Director of Huawei Nigeria, also affirmed that the agreement will further deepen the relationship between the two companies in terms of capacity building.
According to him, service is the future, and thus the IT outsourcing program deeply matches Huawei’s service strategy.
