General Manager - Regional Operations.Commercial Operations SA

at  MTN

Mission/ Core purpose of the Job: (Short description)
To lead the regional strategy and oversee all activities related to the region maintaining a focus on revenue growth, innovation efficiency and operational excellence. This position is responsible for driving and overseeing the operational initiatives from the ‘regional cluster’ that are aimed at achieving efficiencies within the EBU, Technology, Customer Experience & Consumer divisions. The responsibility includes implementation and coordination of strategic initiatives and projects in order to ensure synergy between the MTN Head Office and the Regional Office as well as synergy within the four areas of focus. (I.e. EBU, Customer Experience, Technology & Consumer

Context: (Global influences, environmental / industry demands, organisational mission, etc.)

• Fast moving industry with constantly changing business requirements and technologies
• Fluid complexities of customer expectations and demands
• Highly competitive market with new and established competitors and aggressive competitor strategy and delivery
• Highly dynamic and fluctuating Telecommunications industry
• Total customer experience for MTN brand
• Constantly changing consumer and market needs
• Fast paced environment
• Market dynamics and developments
• MTN policies, processes and procedures
• Regulatory industry norms govern MTN and partners
• Highly pressurized, deadline-driven environment
• Highly legislated / regulated environment requires compliance and adherence to Industry standards and benchmarks
• Participative environment – highly diverse and team-focused

Key Performance Areas: Core, essential responsibilities / outputs of the position (KPA’s)
Key Tasks: Indicates those KPA’s that are essential to the position itself. These are normally specific to the incumbent, the job,
and the function. Excludes role and leadership / management.

Strategic Alignment

• To oversee the alignment of Technology, EBU, Customer Experience and Consumer Business operational and the overall commercial strategy this includes operating systems, procedures and processes.
• To integrate and drive synergies on business streams and fostering alignment to MTN South Africa’s goals and governance requirements.
• To provide advice and guidance to the various departments within the Region
• To align operational needs of the various department to external economic and commercial environment for sustainability.

Business Management

• Ensure effective operational implementation of the strategy by means of providing direction, structure, frameworks, models, plans and roadmaps to be adopted by the Region
• Monitor operational performance as per set targets across various activities.
• Provide strategic direction for business and operational management across the Region
• Ensure cross-functional alignment and coordination across the commercial and technology areas

Operational Delivery

• Oversee the consolidated business performance for Customer Experience, EBU, Technology and Consumer.
• Proactively identify opportunities to reinforce MTN SA performance in the regions
• Oversee and ensure compliance to legal and regulatory frameworks where applicable
• Ensure business operational improvement for Customer Experience, EBU, and Consumer
• To integrate technology landscapes across the different business streams
• Represent MTN SA at all regional key stakeholder meetings
• Manage shared services functions (e.g. Financial Management and Procurement) at a regional level and participate in their appraisal
• Drive MTN SA internal communication efforts in the region
• Relationship building with key customers, both internal and external

Budgets

• Develop and Manage regional budgets in line with business objectives;
• Manage regional project initiatives within the allocated budget ; and
• Ensure that costs are managed efficiently.

Reporting

• Report on a monthly basis relating to progress made within the Region and in accordance with the measurement metrics set by the COO
• Highlight to management any significant deviations from defined performance metrics; and
• Provide regular feedback to the COO regarding all relevant cross-functional issues at regional level
• Report on an adhoc basis on specific projects, as required.

Client Experience

• Ensure delivery of exceptional client experience through appropriate financial integrity, accurate client reporting and timeous resolution of billing issues across the region
• Conduct regular CSAT surveys to monitor client satisfaction for the region
• Work closely with regional sales teams to provide premium service to our clients
• Real-time tracking of progress on outstanding regional client service incidents
• Ensure effective and efficient service escalation processes are in place regionally and central integration
• Be the overall regional custodian for customer engagement across the business

Supervisory / Leadership / Managerial Tasks: Refers to the responsibilities for directing, guiding, motivating and influencing others.

• Coaching and mentoring of direct reports to ensure staff motivation is high
• Ensure optimization of resources
• Ensure the effective management of diversity among employees in the region
• Identify staff training and development needs and implement necessary actions
• Manage and maintain relationships with internal stakeholders and external partners
• Manage the regional management team and ensure they perform at the highest level
• Overall responsibility for budgeting, and human resource management for the region
• Possess the authority; presence and integrity to command respect from colleagues and direct reports
• Provide clear direction and manage performance of the regional team
• Recruitment for the regional management team in consultation with the relevant functional executives
• Monitor the goals and objectives of the regional management team
• Manage the Regional Operations budget
• Prepare the operational budget, expense report and manage the cash book

Role Dependencies: Does not refer to the various “roles” that the incumbent has to assume in the conducting of the duties. Instead, this
would be additional complexity that should not be inherent in this job, but the incumbent has responsibility for.

Example HR Managers having to manage an IT function.

• Provide specialist advice to ad hoc projects and external initiatives as required
• Initiate and participate in projects as required
• Cross functional integration between departments

Lateral Dimensions: These indicate the areas where the individuals could contribute uniquely in addition to the indicated duties, as well as how they could be affected by others or circumstances not necessarily under their control.

Creativities (improvement/innovation inherent) Indicates the potential for improvement and / or innovation inherent in a position.

• Explore innovative ways to integrate the various departments consistently across the region
• Proactive communication regarding operations and strategy elements
• Apply market research in an optimal way to add as much value as possible to own and other areas of the business
• Proactive research and speedy communication of results and recommendations to the relevant areas to build a competitive advantage
• Recommend innovative solutions to enhance MTN performance
• Ensure continuous improvements at system, process and procedure level, in alignment with regional strategy
• Identify innovative ways to use minimum resources to achieve maximum outputs
• Implement cost-saving activities
• Streamline the region in accordance to MTN strategy, economic conditions and market pressures in order to optimise revenue
• Network extensively and establish sound relationships with all stakeholders including external service providers and government officials
• Proactively encourage and maintain executive relationships
• Manage business intelligence to identify trends and risks for MTN
• Build brand credibility
• Structure and build key customer insight, and communicate this to the business via vertical strategy documents

Vulnerabilities (control span) Refers to the latent difficulties, or things that could potentially go wrong that affect a specific position.
Such vulnerabilities may / may not be under the control of the incumbent. Direct implication or first level

of impact.

• Geographic spread
• Changes in South African regulatory environment
• Fluctuations in the market
• Compliance and other laws and legislation
• Franchising legislation
• Reliance on the stability and availability of systems
• Non-achievement of turnaround times
• Inappropriate processes resulting in delayed service to customers
• Operational failures such as billing system and customer service inadequacies
• Incoming resources allocated incorrectly within segments
• Staff performance issues
• Difficult economic conditions
• Prescriptive regulatory environment impacting on solution development
• Retention of experienced staff and skills unavailability
• Internal and external fraud
• Mergers and acquisitions into MTN and channel
• Increasing pace of the business requiring fast turn-around times
• Integrity of MTN operational data
• Budgetary constraints that impact on the short and long term strategies that are being devised

Minimum Requirements - minimum necessary, and not the ideal / preferred should be included.
Education:
4 year Commercial/Business Degree
MBA/Masters in relevant field of study
Experience:
General Management experience in a commercial/telecommunications environment
Senior Management track record of 5 years or more; with at least 3 years within the telecommunications environment
Training:
n/a
Competencies
Knowledge:
Complex structures
Operational management
Marketing best practices and trends
Financial
ICT industry and benchmarking practices
Business Performance Management
Resource Management
Customer Satisfactio

• Coaching and mentoring of direct reports to ensure staff motivation is high
• Ensure optimization of resources
• Ensure the effective management of diversity among employees in the region
• Identify staff training and development needs and implement necessary actions
• Manage and maintain relationships with internal stakeholders and external partners
• Manage the regional management team and ensure they perform at the highest level
• Overall responsibility for budgeting, and human resource management for the region
• Possess the authority; presence and integrity to command respect from colleagues and direct reports
• Provide clear direction and manage performance of the regional team
• Recruitment for the regional management team in consultation with the relevant functional executives
• Monitor the goals and objectives of the regional management team
• Manage the Regional Operations budget
• Prepare the operational budget, expense report and manage the cash boo