Executive Summary
This report’s aim is determining strategic project environment of Ooredoo’s Mobile Application Development project. Ooredoo is the leading enabler of digital business innovation in the Qatar region. The project’s environment is evaluated using the PEST analysis, hence analysing the project’s influence on its environment. To expand and improve its operations, the company launched its Life Marketplace at QITCOM, which provided its developers with Application Program Interfaces (APIs). The APIs enable these developers to invent new and creative business services and solutions to serve its customers better. The Ooredoo Life Marketplace provides APIs with small information components for everybody in Qatar, ranging from students to big organizations. This invention helps the company enhance its data services hence developing a new digital customer-centric service.
Ooredoo’s mission is to improve the lives of the people it serves, and it is guided by the conviction that it can accomplish this by using the power of communications to help others reach their full potential. Ooredoo has a strong foothold in Qatar’s telecom sector and the firm’s major goal is to provide Qatari customers the freedom to access and use the internet in the way that is most comfortable and convenient for them. Investments are happening to make sure that customers’ digital needs are addressed with uninterrupted service. Simplifying life and providing gratifying and interesting digital experiences are two ways in which it accomplishes this goal.
Through the development of its mobile applications, the company can enhance the purchasing convenience of its customers through an Ooredoo bill. Other organizations can use Ooredoo SMS to send their customers SMS, check the contact information for the business, and advertise on platforms with high traffic, such as Ooredoo Sports. Organizations and developers can use this to transform digital enterprises and deliver quality customer experiences.
Introduction
As a global communication company, Ooredoo is based in Qatar and serves both business and residential customers. The company offers mobile, wireless, wireline, and content services to customers worldwide. There are more than 114 million customers in more than 100 countries across the world that use the Ooredoo network (Ooredoo, 2021, p. 3). It was founded in 1987 and is publicly listed, with the Qatari government controlling the majority of the company’s shares (about 69%). The UAE contributes 10%, with 21% from the public (Ooredoo, 2021, p. 7). Established as a telephonic firm, the company has quickly grown to become one of the leading telecommunications providers in Qatar, providing the state with cutting-edge technologies such as mobile, internet, content, television, and fiber services, among others.
In this report, relevant literature has been analysed to find out the strategic project environment of Mobile application development project. Since the company’s creation, Ooredoo has had the vision to enrich people’s digital lives and a commitment to deliver amazing services to its customers (Yusa, 2022). The development enables customers to check available APIs and the latest trends in technology and gain knowledge on creating new applications. Since the company’s inception, mobile application development has been a major focus. This has played a huge role in meeting its B2C objectives. Business customers can leverage the Ooredoo advantage, which makes Ooredoo good for business due to its talent, mobile networks that are well-fixed, and a broad portfolio of ICT services and solutions. Ooredoo has a super net that covers everything, and corporate social responsibility strictly adheres to, making it a reliable go-to company. The company’s telecommunications sector has witnessed many milestones through the years of its operation, which have benefited the customers.
Project stakeholders
Government
This is an external stakeholder of the project, which plays a significant role in the project’s execution. Since the project’s rollout, the government has put measures that favor the firm’s extensive use of mobile applications. In a collaboration between the Ministry of Transport and Communications and Ooredoo, an agreement to expand the Government Data Centre was struck in 2021 (Gulf Times, 2022). In such ways, the Qatari government promotes the firm’s projects by acting as a direct beneficiary of its products.
Industrial Partners
These are the external stakeholders of the development project that contribute to its success. Companies such as Ericsson, Microsoft, and FIFA have enhanced its customer base and increased the developed applications’ users. Ooredoo and its partners have built an LTE network to deliver high-availability voice and data services in remote regions beyond the conventional fixed or mobile network footprint for oil and gas applications. As part of its push into eSports, the company has provided details on its own eSports brand, Ooredoo Nation – Gamers’ Land, and information on other eSports brands to the wider telecoms industry.
Application Users
The developed applications are made for their benefit and daily use. These internal stakeholders are the most important in the system. As part of the project’s objectives, the application users are the sole market of the project’s product. They provide relevant feedback through product rating and appraisal, hence being part of the development project. Ooredoo’s cutting-edge app has grown in popularity, serving more than 3,000,000 customers worldwide (Ooredoo, 2021, p. 19). The developed products have a highly dynamic user interface that caters to everyone with state-of-the-art capabilities. It gives the option to track consumption in real-time and promotional possibilities and pre-sale offers. In addition to receiving concise breakdowns of outstanding invoices, customers may use the app to increase their data plans and make safe payments. Complimentary service has brought another level of value to clients by offering a one-stop-shop where service management and customer support may be accessed.
Shareholders
The shareholders are internal stakeholders who participate in its management and projects. They play a significant role in sourcing resources and innovative ideas for the efficiency of the firms. Ooredoo’s aims and overall performance are considered by the Qatari government (the main shareholder) when making critical decisions, such as modifications to the firm’s constitution, announcing a dividend, and clearing the company’s financial statements. The government does not directly control the corporation’s day-to-day operations. However, because of its yearly taxes, it has a considerable interest in its performance.
Board of Directors
Ooredoo’s Board of Directors is the other essential shareholder in the company’s internal structure. Board members are charged with ensuring that the company’s long-term success is secured by ensuring that the company’s operations are directed in a way that benefits all the company’s stakeholders. Th1eir responsibility is to recruit and retain the manager, evaluate, and reward the manager, build a policy-based governance system, and regulate the company and relationship with the CEO. They oversee the communication process and meet stakeholder expectations.
Project environment
PEST Analysis
In this PEST analysis report for Ooredoo, we can see the different obstacles this telecom faces in politics, the environment, social issues, economic issues, technology, legal issues, and environmental influences. There exist some external factors that have been affecting the telecom business. These factors are discussed in detail by the Ooredoo’s external analysis. The table below outlines some of the environmental factors that influence the firm’s operations.
Table 1: Ooredoo’s PEST analysis table
Social Influences
As part of Qatar’s ongoing support of the Arab Mobile App Challenge organized by the Ooredoo Group, the Gulf country has provided financial support for the event. An event to raise awareness and support local talent was held in Qatar for the regional finals of the Arab Mobile App Challenge. To fill the gap in Qatar’s online content industry, commercially viable Arabic language apps are currently lacking. A survey titled “New Horizons: Young, Arab, and Connected” was commissioned by Ooredoo to find out how young people in the Middle East and North Africa felt about their connectivity to ensure that their objective of supporting youth was realized within their footprint. While technology is crucial to contemporary, forward-looking, and well-functioning societies, the economic potential of the Middle East and North Africa’s young has yet to be completely realized according to the results of the survey. Young Qatari and Arab employees are being trained in-house and via cooperation with organizations like Qatar’s How Women Work to address this issue.
Political Influences
The local government of Qatar has played a significant role in supporting the project financially. Ooredoo is controlled by the State of Qatar, which has a direct and indirect ownership stake of around 69% in the company. As a result of Fitch’s GRE Rating Criteria, the ratings assigned to Ooredoo are three notches lower than the ratings assigned to Qatar’s sovereign rating. The ratings are based on the continued strength of Ooredoo’s ties with the State of Qatar and moderate-to-strong incentives provided by the government to continue to assist. Qatar has historically proven its support by giving cash in delayed royalty payments and subscribing to its pro-rata share of rights offerings and any unsold shares after the initial public offering. Civil unrest and terrorism, on the other hand, pose a threat to the country’s development in countries such as Iraq, Palestine, and Tunisia. To better meet the requirements of consumers in a highly competitive telecoms business, Ooredoo is altering its approach away from large investment portfolios and toward strengthening and updating its current infrastructure.
Economic Influences
Apps developed on Ooredoo’s platform are now being used in the Qatari software industry. Macroeconomic impacts include the rapid expansion of Telecom rates, prompting Ooredoo customers to be dissatisfied. During the pandemic, there was an increase in online retailers and services and households upgrading their internet subscriptions, which had a favorable impact on Ooredoo (Alsamara, 2022). As a result of the rise in Ooredoo’s output, the GDP of the country has increased (Figure 4). Changing any production levels may greatly affect the Ooredoo’s workforce. It is listed on both the Qatar Stock Exchange and Abu Dhabi’s Securities Exchange Market (ADEM) for trading purposes (Figure 3), among other places. The stock market is well-known for its ability to forecast economic health accurately.
Ooredoo has also had a microeconomic impact on customers, competitors, demand, elasticity, and staff. Ooredoo’s 3.2 million customers worldwide are the company’s lifeblood; therefore, keeping them happy is essential (Ooredoo, 2021, p. 19). This reduces monopolistic market strength because Qatar has only two market players. Ooredoo’s only rival is Vodafone, which offers identical offerings in terms of products and services. Ooredoo and Vodafone can deliver almost the same price that consumers demand, resulting in economic equilibrium in a perfectly competitive market. Strategic alliances can help Ooredoo take advantage of the elasticity of telecom service demand in the long term (IG, 2019). For a business to be successful, it relies heavily on its workforce (Al-Khulaifi 2018). Ooredoo’s success or failure depends heavily on the quality of its human resources, which is why Ooredoo hires only the best people to work on its mobile apps
Technological Influences
Ooredoo can address the ever-increasing worldwide demand for cyber traffic flow via Qatar by forming relationships with other telecoms and global connectivity companies. Ooredoo has significantly improved telephony and internet services by combining infrastructure and networking (Gur, 2021). Among the recent high-profile infrastructure deals negotiated by Ooredoo is the AAE-1 underwater cable. High-speed worldwide routing over the AAE-1 cable has opened Qatar to more broadband penetration and internet use, and more business applications (Usman, 2018). As a result, the countries along its path now have access to broadband data and high-quality phone services that are quicker and more dependable than before.
In addition to the partnership between TeliaSonera and Ooredoo, the firm and Omantel have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). A One-Stop-Shop for Arab Regional Carriers’ Increasing IP Needs, the association delivers. A high-capacity and low-latency Fibre optic cable infrastructure linking Europe with Asia and Africa via the Middle East is being put in place. Ooredoo will be able to increase the penetration of mobile broadband and drive data usage for Qatari clients soon, thanks to more collaborations.
Corporate Social Responsibilities and Ethical Responsibilities
CRS Concept in the Case of Ooredoo Mobile Application
The concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has taken hold in the business sector during the last two decades. The Qatari government has developed a policy where firms must participate in CSR in their operations (Badran, 2020). Promoting socioeconomic development in rural regions, promoting education, eradicating severe hunger and poverty, empowering women, lowering child mortality, and enhancing maternal health, health care, and sanitization are the goals of the CSR policy. An increasing number of corporations and organizations are concerned about CSR as one of the numerous business techniques (Al-Abdallah and Ahmed, 2018). Ooredoo Qatar has a long history of giving back to the areas where it does business. The Qatar Business Incubation Centre (QBIC), which helps young entrepreneurs launch start-ups and creative technology-focused businesses, was once again funded by the government.
The launch of various customer satisfaction enhancements in February 2018 resulted in users experiencing worry-free roaming and increased local data consumption. Digital customer interactions have been further improved by the corporation, which has implemented programs to increase touchpoints across the organization and give consumers more incredible self-care options (Thottoli, 2021). The Ooredoo app gained more than half a million new users in 2018 thanks to several the customer-oriented updates.
Live Chat, which was introduced in March for both the firm’s website and mobile application, have made it easier for users to contact the organization. A new Aamali portal allowed corporate clients to track the status of their service requests and manage their services and goods, among other things. Internal procedures have been changed to take advantage of automation and give employees increased speed and flexibility in their interactions. In 2018, customers responded positively to Ooredoo Qatar’s creative advertising strategy. This was demonstrated by the massive popularity of the “Ooredoo High 5” campaign, which invited people to contribute fan-created short films.
On International Labour Day, Ooredoo Qatar took part in events held at the Education City Student Centre. It distributed refreshments, international calling vouchers, and Hala cards to employees in industrial camps. Following in its environmental duties, the firm undertook an aggressive campaign to become paperless, resulting in a 60 percent reduction in paper use across the organization compared to 2017. In addition, the corporation established several beneficial connections with local organizations to assist needy parts of the community. As the official telecommunications partner of Al Noor Institute for the Blind’s graduation ceremony and International White Cane Day celebration, Qatar’s Ooredoo Qatar oversaw promoting the event. The firm further collaborated with Best Buddies Qatar to provide a unique educational event to raise awareness of Qatar’s impairments. It distributed pink ribbons at Ooredoo stores in partnership with the Qatar Cancer Society.
As we look to the future, Ooredoo Qatar has given itself challenging targets to guarantee that the firm maintains its market leadership in the customer experience, and network while growing the potential of its staff talent pool. According to the corporation, the business’s priority will be to enhance people’s digital lives, generate value via digitisation, and make continuous investments in networks. The digitization of products, services, and distribution channels will accelerate, allowing for greater automation and customization in service providing and distribution. Ooredoo Qatar will work hard to increase its market share while also providing its clients with the most satisfactory possible customer service experience.
Ooredoo Qatar has continued to deploy the necessary assets for organizing the 2022 FIFA World Cup even as the deadline nears. As soon as it has established a foothold in the most important areas for connectivity, Ooredoo Qatar plans to focus on B2B ICT solutions (Filo et al., 2021). Organizations may use their expertise, experience, and product offers in this field to achieve remarkable growth and development. This strategy will yield significant returns terms while requiring substantial investment at the outset of future revenues in the years ahead.
Ethical Responsibilities
Organizations in the business world must comply with ethical duties and economic and legal responsibilities. The existence of laws and regulations is essential, yet they are frequently insufficient. As society dictates, business companies are expected to conduct their operations and activities ethically (Al Thani and Obeidat, 2020). It has been stated that certain behaviors are lawful yet unethical, despite their legal status. Companies that go above and beyond the laws and standards of the industry are sought out by organizations. Even though ethics are not explicitly defined in the law, it has been shown that they include behaviors and policies that are supported by the public. Working in accordance with societal standards and morality is one of these demands. Keeping up with changing social and ethical conventions is the other, as is not sacrificing moral principles in pursuit of a company’s objectives. Keeping a company’s integrity and upholding high ethical standards entails more than simply abiding by the laws of the state.
In compliance with its Client Charter and Privacy Policy and local laws in each market, the company is dedicated to protecting customer data. Information technology service management systems and information security management systems have been. As a result of the firm’s information security risk management strategy, dangers to corporate information assets are managed and mitigated to a manageable level. Among other things, we concentrate on the process of vulnerability management, incident monitoring and response and recovery, patch management, and identity and access management. Multiple security technologies have been put in place to safeguard the network from internal and external intrusions (Muthuraman, Saadi and Jaradi, 2021). These include firewalls, privilege access management, network access control, anti-malware, and other security measures. Employees at Ooredoo are required to undergo monthly security training.
Client service enhancement and responsible customer interactions are part of the company’s mission. To guarantee a seamless complaint management system, all activities are accredited by quality management. Ooredoo Qatar posts all its terms and conditions, pricing, and other pertinent details on its website and mobile app to ensure complete openness about its products and services. They can be obtained by contacting the customer service representatives via phone, Chat, or WhatsApp. Across all its territories, the company regularly conducts customer satisfaction surveys. These surveys help it discover what matters most to the consumers, understand their needs, and consistently improve the mobile applications and products, offering, and customer experience of its mobile apps and goods.
In its Code of Business Ethics, the corporation formally committed to promote equality of opportunity. The HR Policy guarantees equality in employment decisions. All the applicants and employees are given equal consideration in the recruiting and promotion process, and all other employment-related decisions. In the case of a dispute, a grievance procedure is in place, and management and employees are encouraged to communicate frequently.
Conclusion
Ooredoo Qatar is fast growing in mobile application development with so many clients in most countries globally. The company has significant stakeholders who aid in its growth, including the government and industrial partners, external stakeholders and the internal ones, application users, and shareholders. They all significantly impact its operations since they play important roles. The external shareholders influence the company operations from the external environment, while the internal shareholders ensure that operations run smoothly so that the company remains relevant to its beneficiaries.
Like most companies, Ooredoo telecom faces challenges politically, socially, legally, economically, and technologically. Political stability is vital for the company’s operations as tension only leads to less support financially hence making it harder to carry out essential functions. Identifying the issues and solving them accordingly leads to its growth and profitability. Economic reforms also affect the company directly through GDPs. The company has made Qatarisation the main priority hence boosting its operations sociologically due to the increased need for online video content. Ooredoo should also adapt accordingly to technological advancement to remain relevant to society. It does this through undersea cable activation, making data transition more effortless in the regions it operates.
Being such an influential company, Ooredoo Qatar has a social responsibility and an ethical role in providing services. Therefore, the management should ensure that it bases its goals on productivity and moral obligation to the people it serves. The business developing the Corporate Social Responsibility concept is a step in the right direction to achieve this goal. This concept has been achieved through setting targets in areas of networking, digital evolvement, and customer experience while growing its staff potential at the same time. Finally, the firm must ensure that it complies with the Client Charter and Privacy Policy to protect its customers’ data.
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