Exclusive interview: Ooredoo's Ross Cormack dials in
By Jeremy Mullins and Aung Shin | Saturday, 02 August 2014Mobile users can now receive calls from phone numbers starting with 997 – the first three digits of an Ooredoo number – after the firm launched its network on August 2.
Yet the road to the launch has not always been easy for Oredoo, which has had to manage a massive infrastructure rollout, connection agreements with rivals and even a boycott call from extremist groups.
Ooredoo Myanmar chief executive officer Ross Cormack, chief marketing officer Lorna McPherson and public relations manager Daw Thiri Kyar Nyo sat down with The Myanmar Times' Jeremy Mullins and Aung Shin ahead of the launch to discuss what Ooredoo has done so far and its plans for the future.
Firstly, congratulations on getting this far. If you were to give Ooredoo a letter grade from A to F based on its performance so far, what would it be?
Mr Cormack: I think we were given a huge challenge by the government. The government right from the very beginning – from the bids stage, actually –challenged all the operators of the world to come out with something that met the needs of Myanmar, which was to deliver affordable communications everywhere. And so we've got quite a steep hill to climb.
What we're doing is bringing the latest technology to Myanmar to meet Myanmar's needs – the people of Myanmar and the government of Myanmar.
So no A through F?
I think you have to ask customers – we're very customer-focused. We've got thousands of people [trialling the network] at the moment and the answers coming back are pretty damn good.
What are you particularly proud of?
In terms of the service we'll be delivering customers, the HD, the crystal-clear voice communications. I'm proud of the fast internet for all. Wherever we have coverage, you can have fast internet. The third thing I'm proud about is that we're able to deliver services for a very affordable level. I'm proud of that.
I'm proud of [the fact that] as you look around we've got real Myanmar people in our business. We depend on Myanmar people. We've got 800 Myanmar people on our team, which is approximately 80 percent of our people. So that makes a difference.
With the benefit of hindsight, what did Ooredoo not do that well? What could you have done better?
I will also preface these remarks by saying we've had fantastic help – every time we said "help!" we had help, including any ministers in government [who] have been very accessible for us to get decisions, any regional chief ministers and their ministers have all been very accessible, all the township councils have been very accessible.
But we're dealing with rules that are not fully understood across the country. So if I had my time again we could have done how we did our [tower] permit applications more smoothly. It was very lumpy when we were getting started but now it's running like a machine.
Are you on track to meet the performance targets set by the government?
Absolutely, yes. What we said was we would launch within six months of our licence. So here we are launching the pre-kick off promotion on August 2. This cements the promise we made to the government about having products and services out there. We'll be in the three big cities at launch. We obviously will be pleased to roll out more quickly as soon as we can.
So three cities – Yangon, Mandalay, Nay Pyi Taw?
Yes. We cover a lot of Yangon but not the whole of Yangon yet. We've still got one or two significant gaps which are being closed as we speak.
What can customers expect in terms of pricing?
The pre-kick off promotional offer is for the price of a SIM, which will be K1500 to you, the customer, for that price between the August 2 and midnight on August 14 you will be able to consume for free 900 minutes of calls from Ooredoo Myanmar to Ooredoo Myanmar customers, 900 SMSs again for free, 90 minutes of calls to other networks, including MPT, for free, 90 SMSs again for free and 20 megs of data for free every day, which when you use it up is the end of it. Except for one thing: it comes with free Facebook. So all you can eat Facebook when you stay on the net in Facebook.
So that's the proposition between August 2 and August 14. Does that sound cool?
I am told an agreement with Telenor on interconnect, to enable Ooredoo users to call Telenor users and vice versa, came pretty easily but it took a little longer to get the interconnect with MPT. Was it them using pricing power or market power?
When you've built a network over many years you actually have a very complicated network. We know this from other countries. We've been incumbents in other markets and actually it's very difficult.
You end up with a history of different technologies, layer upon layer upon layer, and in a country where you haven't had to interconnect with other operators you have someone coming along and says, "I just want to plug in to your interconnect," and of course you're not set up for it. So it's actually harder.
We've designed our architecture knowing there's going to be interconnecting.
Will you have your own phone number series? Will Ooredoo phones be identifiable?
997 is our initial number block. As we get more customers we will apply for new number blocks. There is a process the government hasn't yet had to follow but has designed in order for us to do that.
There have been anti-Ooredoo messages spread around Facebook, most on purported Muslim links. How do you counter these rumours? What's your message?
It's very simple: We're a telecom operator. That's all we do.
The government challenged us like I mentioned at the beginning, and we've been building a network as fast as we can that more than meets their expectations. If we get our service right we're confident people will enjoy using it, and if they enjoy using it they will get other people to come and join as well. So that's one level.
There's another level which is what a telco generally does in society. We employ quite a few people directly but also indirectly our industry typically employs a huge proportion of people who add to the value chain. Whether they're tower companies, whether they're infrastructure companies, vendors [or] people doing maintenance.
The other stuff we do that is just our way of life is that we reach out to other communities. We do that naturally because it's our business model. Some people call it CSR but we call it meaningful community engagement.
By having community engagement are you are able to counter the negative messages on the ground? Is that the crux of the idea?
We're aware of [the negative messages] but our real activity is just to do our day job. Our day job is telecoms. But what we're also describing [in terms of CSR activities] is what we do in every country we operate in.
We believe that actually once people understand the telecoms they're getting is world class, they'll start to be focused on enjoying that and getting the best from that.
MPT is the sole incumbent right now, and probably has the best customers in terms of average revenues per user. How will Ooredoo tempt them to its side?
Put very simply, we've asked customers what they want, and if we get that right we're giving customers what they say they want, at a more affordable price. So I would encourage … everyone to try the service over the next couple weeks and see what they think.
Your chief operations officer left mid-June. Can you discuss why he left?
We have about 800 Myanmar and about 200 plus internationals. And we bring those people from other countries. Some come from other parts of Ooredoo, some come from the market with specific skills. So at any one time we've got people coming and going because it's a start-up.
There are a huge number of phases to getting started. So some people we bring in just for the first, some we bring in to launch, some we bring in to launch just after. And now we are looking for people who are used to running operations that will come in.
When we started in the Parkroyal [Hotel], we sat in a room, we had nothing apart from 10 people, and said how do we go from here to having an office full of people [and operating a telco] …. So we've had a number of people come through, senior positions and also more project positions, and they come and go regularly.
Your network obviously did not come cheap. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Ooredoo previously announced it plans to spend US$15 billion over 15 years.
Yes, I have not been repeating that because I think it caused us more trouble than it was worth. But it was a true number for the total re-investment of the company over a 15-year period. It's the cost but it's still a real number. It's the cost of employing people and buying stuff and operating stuff and looking after customers. So from a business plan that was the total cost over 15 years.
Ms McPherson: But it can get taken the wrong way I think.
Mr Cormack: Yes, everybody just thought we were bloody rich. So it was the wrong statement to make but it was true.
Is it fair to say you're probably spending a little more than your competitor?
You'd have to ask them. We're spending in a very focused way on what we think makes a difference. We put in the very latest technology in the world.
You personally have worked in a few other markets. How does this market compare to those?
It's the world's last frontier telecoms market so it's the most exciting I've ever done. Also the most complicated that I've ever done simply because the country doesn't have a process for doing a lot of the stuff we need to do. So we've had to learn and the country's had to learn and we've had to learn that together.
But having said that, my goodness, do you feel that you are able contribute to making a difference? Yes, you do. And I know a lot of my dear colleagues feel the same way. I'm only half-joking when we do all-hands meetings and I stand on my desk and everybody gathers around and I tell them, "You will be telling your grandchildren about what you're doing here because you will be making a difference for your country."
The government's been very much behind us. Right from the first press conference they held about the selection of Telenor and us, they held a dinner in the evening with YTP, MPT, and the two new guys on the block. They had four ministers and the regulator and we sat around a table, about 16 of us at a round table eating Myanmar food for five hours, and we just chatted as human beings. They said, "Guys, we chose you because we need help." And they told us about their vision for their country. And they said, "So we need you to damn well deliver what you said you were going to deliver."
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
http://www.information.myanmaronlinecentre.com/exclusive-interview-ooredoos-ross-cormack-dials-in/
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