Ericsson appoints new head of GCC... partners Tigo in 'as-a-service' capacity in Rwanda

Ericsson in Market Area Middle East and Africa has appointed Wojciech Bajda as head of Ericsson in Gulf Council Countries (GCC) and Global Customer Unit (GCU) Zain and a member of the Market Area’s Leadership Team.

Bajda will be based in Dubai and he will be responsible for driving the company’s business in the GCC markets in addition to driving the company’s business for Zain Group within Ericsson.

Ericsson Middle East and Africa President Rafiah Ibrahim says: "The new leadership team is set to enable our customers’ current and future success with the ambition of becoming more responsive to their needs. Our focus remains to be our customer’s trusted partner of choice across the Middle East and Africa market and with this new team, I am confident that we will be able to achieve our wanted position."

Prior to assuming his current role, Bajda held the responsibility of driving Ericsson’s non-operator business across region Middle East.

In a related development, Tigo Rwanda has partnered with Ericsson to completely overhaul its Business Support Systems (BSS) ecosystem.

According to information supplied by the companies, Tigo Rwanda is the first operator across the Millicom group that has transformed its BSS operations and gone live with Ericsson's 'as a Service' model for its complete BSS needs. The solution covers the full spectrum of charging, billing, provisioning, mediation and roaming functionality combined with advanced customer care and self-care solutions for management and ordering of services.

Ericsson says the partnership will benefit Tigo customers with "new and innovative offerings combined with shorter time to market, improved customer experience and increased operational efficiency."

Xavier Rocoplan, Chief Technical and IT Officer at Millicom says, "This is another major step in our IT transformation and process improvement journey. The 'as a Service' operating model is a very important component of our long term strategy. This new way of looking at BSS activities is a cornerstone in Millicom's operational excellence program that strives at always delivering a better experience for our customers in a more efficient manner. The partnership with Ericsson has enabled us to quickly meet our strategic needs and provide a solid foundation for future development. We have already begun to see improvements in the experience for our consumers and employees in Rwanda."

Rafiah Ibrahim, SVP and Head of Market Area Middle East & Africa, Ericsson, says: "Our partnership with Tigo Rwanda and the implementation of Ericsson's innovative BSS 'as a Service' model signifies an important first step towards future collaboration across the Millicom group. We are confident that the trust and cooperation embedded in this business model, which lies at the centre of revenue generation for Tigo, will further strengthen the strategic relationship in BSS between Tigo Rwanda and Ericsson, as well as the entire Millicom group."

In March this year, Tigo in Tanzania and Ericsson partnered to launch the first of a series of rural pilot tower sites to extend mobile broadband coverage to specific regions.