Warid to invest another $25m

By Stephen Ilungole and Samuel Sanya

WARID Telecom invested up to $25m (about sh62b) last year in network expansion and improvement, a top official has revealed.

“This resulted into significant growth in market share. We are set to spend a further $25m by mid-year,” Sriram Yarlagadda, the Warid chief executive officer and the director for telecom business, told the press in Kampala. 

Yarlagadda was announcing the hand over of the running of its call centre operations to Indian-based Spanco BPO in measures to cut costs on non-core business areas. 

The new joint company Spanco Raps Uganda will manage all Warid’s outsourcing and call centre operations, including all inbound calls. 

The group will be remunerated on the basis of calls handled, top officials told the media in Kampala yesterday. 

The group handles 30 telecom operators in India with a total of one million calls daily.

Spanco BPO is a subsidiary of Spanco Limited listed on the Mumbai and the National Stock exchange with revenues of over $340m last year. 

Yarlagadda explained that they would now concentrate on their core business of brand building, boosting customer base, new area coverage and network expansion.

“We have limited capabilities to run the call centres. This is not a core role for telecoms world over. 

“We are not best placed to run the concept,” Yarlagadda said.

“We needed to bring experts in this field like Spanco to help enhance the kind of service we dream to offer our customers,” he noted. 

Yarlagadda pointed out that the deal will reduce the waiting time spent by clients wanting to speak to a customer care agent to between 20 and 30 seconds from an average of three to five minutes. 

“Spanco will expand the call centre base, which will help provide superior quality customer care service to boost our customer satisfaction,” Yarlagadda stated. 

He observed that all the thousands of employees in the call centres will be transferred to the new company. 

“There will be no job losses. 

“The one thing we did was to ensure that no job is lost,” he said. 

Yarlagadda said the company will now concentrate on growing market share and revenues. 

Pravin Kumar, the Spanco BPO global chief executive officer, indicated that a team of experienced personnel was already in the country to start the mapping of process of the areas covered by Warid, which he said should last in 45 days. 

“We will then start a detailed engagement with key staff in IT and marketing departments. We see huge potential. 

“These services are key for everybody including e-government,” Kumar said.

Warid also joined MTN and Orange telecoms after announcing a deal to sell its 394 towers to the UK-based Eaton Towers. 

The firm has tower operations in Ghana and South Africa.

Yarlagadda said the deal would help them reduce the long term infrastructure costs. 

“This gives us the ability to put our money into areas that allow us to grow much faster in electronics, rolling out into more locations, our brand development and not in the passive towers,” said Yarlagadda. “We are now looking to spend more on other areas. The costs of building towers, generators and fencing are no longer our responsibility,” he added. 

Pravin Kumar, the Spanco global boss revealed that they are looking to spend anything between $2.5 and $3m on the onset, adding that his company is eyeing telecoms, government and the electricity sector.

Alan Harper, the Eaton Towers chief executive, said he was excited to work with Ugandan telecom operators.

“Eaton Towers’ expertise in tower management and commitment to top quality service will allow Ugandan operators to focus on providing innovative mobile services and expanding its subscriber base. At the same time, our ownership and management of the telecoms network infrastructure will ensure that the local networks will continually be enhanced and expanded, whilst maintaining low operating costs for the mobile operators,” Harper said.

“These partnerships (with local operators) bring significant benefits to all parties,” he explained.