Meet Gaspard Twagirayezu, a Digital Changemaker

Meet Gaspard Twagirayezu, a Digital Changemaker who is demystifying STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) for Rwandan students, shaping them to be STEM innovators of the future!  Gaspard inspires youth through tech fairs, creation clubs and science camps, where he and his team teach students that the STEM field is interesting, fun and can lead to amazing job opportunities in the future. He does all this work through his sustainable social enterprise, Creation Hill. 

Gaspard is the winner of the 2013 Tigo Digital Changemakers competition which included a grant from Tigo and a spot in the Reach for Change Incubator. in the Incubator, Gaspard received trainings in strategic planning, financial management, communications and more to ensure that Creation Hill can scale to reach as many students as possible, and remain sustainable for years to come! Since 2013, Gaspard has impacted thousands of Rwandan students, who have gone on to study in STEM fields in post-secondary and who will become scientists, engineers and IT professionals leading Rwanda's development throughout their careers.

Do you have a digital innovation that is improving the lives of Rwandans? Visit http://bit.ly/29D8fwH to sign up to be notified when the next Tigo Digital Changemakers competition starts!

Tigo Rwanda commissions Internet Transit for KT Rwanda Networks

Tigo Rwanda is proud to announce the commissioning of a wholesale IP Transit service for KT Rwanda Networks. The wholesale IP Transit deal will allow internet international traffic from KT Rwanda Networks to transit via the Tigo Rwanda/Millicom fibre optic network into the Millicom POP (Point of Presence) in London, United Kingdom.  

Under this 10-year partnership with KT Rwanda Networks, Tigo Rwanda will provide STM-4 Bandwidth over a secured network with a bit rate of 622Mbit/s.  Previously, international Internet traffic from Rwanda relied on regional and international carriers such as BCS-Kenya, WIOCC, and SeaComm.

This is the first time in Rwanda that the transit of international internet traffic is commissioned by a local operator at such a large scale.

Philip Amoateng, Chief Executive Officer, Tigo Rwanda commented: “We are proud to be the first Rwandan telecom operator to provide IP transfer at such a large scale. Over the last year our parent company Millicom has made investments such as the acquisition of operator Zanzibar Telecom (Zantel) that positions us with the infrastructure and the needed access to sea-cable to provide such services. “

Han-Sung Yoon, Chief Executive Officer, KT Rwanda Networks said: “Tigo Rwanda and KT Rwanda Networks have enjoyed a strong partnership that resulted into an increased number of 4G users in Rwanda;  and the purchase of this capacity comes to elevate the 4G user experience. We thank Tigo Management and look forward to doing more together”.  

Philip Amoateng, Chief Executive Officer, Tigo Rwanda added: “What this means for our clients is that in addition to providing a competitive price, both technical and commercial support will be done locally by our experts.”

The IP Transit service for KT Rwanda Networks was made possible through Tigo Rwanda’s partnership with Zanzibar Telecom (Zantel). Zantel is a shareholder in three main sea-cable providers, namely TEAMS, WACCS, and EASSY.  Zantel interconnect also with SEACOM at their landing POP in Dar-Es-Salam.

The cables provide low latency connectivity to the internet. The large capacity provides the best environment for triple play applications namely voice, data and video streaming.

The protected IP transit capacity will be taken from Dar-es-Salaam; hence most of the contents will also be available at that point due to caching mechanism put in place at our POP in Dar-es-Salam.

This will reduce the latency drastically.

Submarine Cable routes available

South Route 1: Dar es Salaam- EASSy-Mtunzini-SA Terrestrial- WACS- London Telehouse West

South Route 2: Dar es Salaam- -EASSy-Djibouti-Egypt-Marseille - London Telehouse West

Tigo Business - A Solution for every Business

Through its B2B (Business to Business) unit, Tigo Rwanda has been providing business solutions to corporate, government, SMEs and NGOs clients for over 5 years. The large portfolio of corporate and enterprise solutions offered by Tigo Business comprises of the following:

•           Mobile telecommunications: [Postpaid data and voice, Prepaid voice (EASYBIZ), CUG (Closed user group) that allows employees to call within the company’s group free of charge.]

•           Fixed Voice solutions: ISDN/PRI/E1

•           Corporate Broadband data services (MPLS, IP-sec , VPN and Internet) 

•           Fibre to the building data connectivity.

•           Corporate mobile APN for interconnection with remote devices (such Banks’ POS)

•           Payment solutions: (ex: Bulk SMS)

•           Fleet Management system

About Tigo Rwanda

Currently, Tigo Rwanda has over three million customers and has invested over US $310 million from 2009 to date.   Tigo Rwanda provides 4G LTE on mobile for both prepaid and post-paid customers.  Tigo Rwanda was awarded as the ‘Most Innovative Service’ at Africa Com 2014, for international mobile money transfers with integrated currency conversion between Tigo Rwanda and Tigo Tanzania as well as awarded for “Best ICT Exhibitor” at the Kigali Expo 2015. This year Tigo Rwanda became the first telecom operator in Africa to sign the Connected Women Commitment Initiative.

Tigo Rwanda is owned by Millicom, a leading telecommunications and media company uniquely dedicated to emerging markets in Latin America and Africa. It provides mobile, mobile financial, cable and satellite services to over 60 million customers in fourteen countries, primarily under the Tigo brand. Tigo has been operating in Africa since 1993, in Rwanda since 2009, and serves over 26 million customers in Africa.

About KT Rwanda Networks

KT Rwanda Networks is the only 4G LTE infrastructure company in Rwanda, jointly invested by the Government of Rwanda and KT exclusively for wholesale provision of universal mobile broadband network in Rwanda using 4G LTE technology. The wholesale network service for mobile broadband will help to promote healthy competition for advanced retail services and solutions, and will benefit consumers, enterprises and the nation in transforming Rwanda into the ICT hub of East Africa.

POSITION: Head of Customer Value Management & Voice

About Tigo Rwanda

Tigo Rwanda is part of a global telecommunications company- Millicom with a presence in Africa and Latin America. Launched in 2009, we are the second largest telecommunications company in Rwanda, offering GSM, 2G, 3G and 4G as well as mobile financial services under the Tigo brand; 

Join our team as a:

POSITION: HEAD OF CUSTOMER VALUE MANAGEMENT & VOICE

JOB PURPOSE:

Responsible for shaping the strategic direction of Tigo’s CVM and Voice & SMS portfolio and for developing and implementing business plans that achieve business objectives.

Also responsible for shaping the future direction of Voice and CVM offerings using thorough market insights to advice on ways to improve Tigo’s products and services and ensure that our offerings are shaped around the customer.

Reviews Voice and CVM product portfolio performance to reach revenue/margins P&L targets & decides on product lifecycle.

Responsible for retaining the existing base of customers and maximizing opportunities for value creation amongst the base across Low Value Customers to High Value Customers. Creates and evaluates opportunities to drive increased loyalty amongst the base.

As part of retention responsibilities, defines the end-to-end customer experience across products, channels and customer segments, and monitors the implementation of the defined experience.

Ultimate responsibility to ensure Tigo Rwanda becomes the operator of choice, particularly in the HVC segment, and attains a market leading position.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

CORE RESPONSIBILITIES

VOICE AND SMS

Grow Voice & SMS business

• Maximize product penetration, revenue and P&L of the Voice & SMS business
• Leverage market and customer base insights to develop and implement new products and services to acquire and retain target customers
• Identify market trends, opportunities and risks to define future propositions and promotions that drive customer acquisition for Voice & SMS customers

CUSTOMER VALUE MANAGEMENT

Identify Opportunities to Drive Incremental Value Creation from the Base

• Build an understanding of the drivers of value across Voice, Data, VAS and MFS products and across value bands
• Develop targeted propositions to identified segments to deliver more value and increase revenue within the segment
• Identify and maximize opportunities to upsell customers from lower ARPU bands into higher value bands
• Maximize total value per customer by identifying cross-selling opportunities of Voice customers into Data, VAS, MFS and vice versa
• Deliver revenue targets across products and within specified value segments of the existing base

Drive Retention Strategies including Churn and Loyalty Management to Protect the Base and Increase Brand Affinity

• Build and maintain an industry-leading Loyalty Program as a sustainable differentiator versus our competitors and a means to drive greater brand affinity especially within the HVC base
• Develop churn strategies centred around early churn detection and a framework of proven propositions to arrest churn within the customer base
• Identify opportunities to encourage consistent usage of products and services by offering short-term loyalty incentives across all products
• Build an understanding of the drivers of churn among the base to drive proposition development to proactively stem churn

Define the Customer Experience across Products, Channels and Customer Segments and Monitor the Implementation

• Be the custodian of the customer experience that Tigo aims to deliver across our products and touch points by engaging all relevant stakeholders in defining the base experience for our customers including new customers, HVCs, etc
• Develop and maintain a measurement framework to monitor the delivered experience against the defined experience. Feedback performance shortfalls to the business and agree on actions with relevant stakeholders to close the gap

ADDITIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES

Work with Other Teams to Deliver Projects on Time

• Define and validate creative briefs; and work with the Marketing team to develop internal and external communication strategies (including communication bulletin and launch event) for new products
• Work with internal teams to develop agency briefs and research strategies (including discussion guides, questionnaires, marketing briefs and product descriptions)
• Coordinate with Sales and Distribution on all promotional activities
• Lead the creation of the blue print of a product/offer and work with the Tech/IT teams to prepare products for roll out
• Develop offer/product roll out checklist

Leadership and Teamwork

• Be responsible for the Voice and CVM team and lead and manage the team to deliver exceptional standards of delivery

• Cascade goals, motivate and manage team performance (set objectives and KPIs, maintain frequent updates and review meetings,  assess and address performance issues)
• Stimulate a creative, customer-obsessed and value-driven team to maximize opportunities for value creation

QUALIFICATION & SKILLS:

• University degree, preferable in marketing, communication, arts or engineering. Master’s degree would be a plus
• 4-5 years’ experience in a related role
• Senior marketing and managerial experience in consumer marketing, product or brand management or strategic planning required
• Experience in delivering marketing insights and leading strategy within a large, complex organization
• Experience in developing and/or managing Voice & SMS products and services and CVM
  • Product Managers with a high level of execution focus
  • Project Managers with a high level of ownership / business understanding
• Strong understanding of the telecoms industry
• Ability to think strategically in order to align short-term moves with long-term objectives
• Excellent commercial acumen and ability to identify and solve varied business problems
• Demonstrated creativity in developing innovative propositions
• Strong quantitative ability
• Effective communicator at all levels of the organization
• Strong prioritization, organizational and people management skills
• Has the courage to share opinion on challenging matters and debate them
• Is a great leader, achieving results and inspiring people to think creatively
• Is one step ahead of the numbers, great forecasting ability enabling proactive prompts to stakeholders

How to Apply:

If you believe that you are the right candidate for the above position, Please submit your application to the link below:

http://careers.peopleclick.eu.com/careerscp/client_millicom/external/gateway.do?functionName=viewFromLink&jobPostId=7542&localeCode=en-us

Deadline for Submission: Monday 15th August2016.

Tigo Rwanda slashes the price of calls to Europe

Today, Tigo Rwanda is happy to announce new tariffs for international calls to Europe for both prepaid and post-paid customers. 

New Tariffs for international calls to Europe

Frw 45 per minute: Belgium, France, Netherlands, and United Kingdom

Frw 95 per minute: Rest of Europe

Previously the tariff to Belgium, France, Netherlands, and United Kingdom was Frw 48 per minute and Frw199  per minute for the rest of Europe. A text message (SMS) to any country in Europe is charged Frw 90 only.

Commenting on the new tariffs, Philip Amoateng, Chief Executive Officer, Tigo Rwanda said:

“Tigo Rwanda is committed to constantly satisfying its customers by meeting and exceeding their expectations. We set out to provide affordable and accessible mobile services everywhere so that our subscribers can stay in touch with their loved ones and facilitate business by reducing the costs of communication”.

Tigo Rwanda has the most competitive international calling and SMS rates on the market. For instance, the cost of a text message (SMS) from Rwanda to Uganda, Kenya or South Sudan is charged at Frw45 only. If you want to call Kenya, Uganda or South Sudan, the rates are Frw68, Frw60 and Frw60 respectively.

About Tigo Rwanda

Tigo Rwanda is owned by Millicom, a leading telecommunications and media company uniquely dedicated to emerging markets in Latin America and Africa. It provides mobile, mobile financial, cable and satellite services to over 60 million customers in fourteen countries, primarily under the Tigo brand. Tigo has been operating in Africa since 1993, in Rwanda since 2009, and serves over 26 million customers in Africa. 

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