As a young Qatari company, we are boldly optimistic about the future and genuinely excited about Vodafone’s role in shaping it. This made the Group’s global campaign - The future is exciting. Ready? – ideally suited to roll-out in Qatar.
Through this campaign, we have repositioned the Vodafone Qatar brand towards our new Group purpose of helping communities adapt, innovate and prosper in a rapidly changing world. This purpose is nicely consistent with Qatar’s 2030 vision. The campaign invites customers and all Qataris to embrace and enjoy the bright future we envisage together as partners.
Our video, “Nostalgia for the Future” was one of the most notable expressions of the campaign to date.
Launched on Qatar National Day, it embodied the essence of our progressive brand, services and innovations all while honouring Qatari traditions and customs. It perfectly expresses our optimism for Qatar, blending its rich history into an innovative future.
The new slogan and fresh look affirms our commitment to bring the best and most innovative products and services to Qatar.
The Vodafone “speech mark” now appears as the graphic focus of our messages. It has become a strong symbol of our commitment to place customer benefits at the heart of our brand.
The slogan, which replaces “Power to You”, in use since 2009, was deployed in all of Vodafone’s 36 markets in the biggest ad campaign in our 34-year history.
Alongside the campaign, we launched three services that empower customers to stay connected on their own terms. Each service is specially designed to resonate with a target customer segment in Qatar.
Vodafone Qatar reflects the best of our global network stemming from our local roots. Operationally, we are committed to a 100 per cent “Made in Qatar” approach, and only work with local businesses to create and deliver our marketing materials.
This decision is driven by our strong commitment to help businesses in Qatar advance their capabilities and showcase their work across the globe. Vodafone Qatar was twice recognised by Vodafone Group this year: once for the outstanding delivery of the group brand relaunch, and second for its luxury approach to the iPhone X launch. Local agencies supported both campaigns.
Leveraging our global expertise to bring the latest innovations and business solutions to Qatar has been another focal point. We repositioned our enterprise brand as a global and tailor-made solutions provider, offering unparalleled expert advice to Qatari businesses. We were honoured to have CEOs of Qatari companies, including Msherieb, Meeza and Energy City publicly highlight Vodafone’s pivotal role in bringing global innovation and bespoke solutions to Qatar.
We believe that leading in retail requires being geographically close to our customers, enabling as many face-to-face interactions as possible. That is why we now operate 29 retail stores across Qatar, three of which opened this year in Dar Al Salam, Gulf Mall and Doha Festival City with more planned for 2018.
The new stores are designed to bring customers on a branded journey based on convenience, transparency, simplicity and speed. The stores boast some unique features including terminals with best-selling devices and popular mobile accessories. We have also focused on training our team members to improve how they deliver the best advice and services at these locations.
The new stores blend the best of digital and human interaction in a personal, instant and easy way.
We have expanded our distribution by offering postpaid sales in 150 mass-market outlets, strategically spread across Qatar where we lack a retail footprint or competitive presence. In 400 mass outlets, we have also launched bill payment capabilities for postpaid accounts. This expansion is a win-win for customers who now get better access to Vodafone services and for dealers who now have more business with Vodafone.
Delivering everyday great value that fits in your pocket.
Reaching high-value customers in Qatar is a key sales objective, and our Red Teams are making it happen. Selected based on their outstanding customer service skills, Red Team members are providing world-class personalised service. All team members are Qatari advisers to ensure smooth interaction with the target customer and reinforce our position as a company with local roots.
Delivering everyday great value that fits in your pocket.
Vodafone Qatar is committed to creating a digitally outstanding customer experience, and advanced analytics enable us to deliver on this promise. Additionally, the utilization of “Big Data” helped to generate many of the insights that led to the 2017 strategies and activities described here.
“Vodafone Qatar has a well-deserved global reputation of bringing together advanced analytics, innovative products and agile processes.” - Diego Camberos, Consumer Business Unit Director
As a global leader in mobile communication, we take data security and confidentiality very seriously. With best-in-class systems and highly skilled experts, Vodafone Qatar meets and often exceeds our obligations to protect and secure customer data.
Our vision is to CARE – ensuring our customers are Confidently connected, we deliver Always excellent value, we Reward loyalty and provide Easy access to support.
Previously the “A” in CARE stood for “Always in control”. The change in 2017 to “Always excellent value” better reflects our commitment to provide “control, choice and transparency” to customers.
“Choice” is especially strategic. It reflects our commitment to give customers the best options for their needs with total flexibility and no worries. “Transparency” relates to our fair pricing policy, proactive billing notifications and competitive rates.
Our new Red postpaid portfolio is one of the best expressions of our CARE vision. With this service, we rewrote the rules for telecoms in Qatar.
As part of one of the biggest telecommunications companies in the world, Vodafone Qatar has launched many innovative products and services. Here are some of the most exciting launched this year that reinforce our CARE vision.
In the consumer segment, customer satisfaction results in Qatar are far above industry standards, positioning Vodafone as a clear leader in our region. How did we achieve this result? With next generation customer care that exceeds expectations.
After a 360-review of the customer journey, we upgraded our digital platforms and tools to enhance the customer experience during the moments that matter most. With the new My Vodafone app, for instance, new features make chat even easier and allow for direct debit card payment and recharge. The app is a win-win by improving customer service and reducing costs.
These upgrades made customer service simpler and faster, as well as freed our care team to focus more on complex customer requests.
Expanding our service to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) remains at the heart of our company strategy. How are we delivering on it in Qatar? By treating SMEs as partners in the relentless pursuit of technology and innovation that unlocks new value. This year, we achieved several major milestones towards this goal.
Because we see our enterprise customers as partners, we work to deliver innovations that enable them to grow and thrive. In 2017, this included playing promotional corporate ring-back tones and offering up to 30 international minutes of talk time for every one hour of received calls.
“Vodafone connects people, places and things in ways people could never imagine before in Qatar.” – Mahmud Awad, Chief Business Officer
Why innovative enterprises choose Vodafone
Vodafone has expertise in augmented reality, smart energy, facial recognition, fleet management, asset tracking, connected cabinets, smart Wi-Fi, 5G technology and more.
While some just talk about the possibilities for the Internet of Things in Qatar, we are bringing this technology to life for enterprises of all kinds throughout the country.
By engaging in high-profile events in 2017, we affirmed our leadership role in tech and telecom with influential enterprise stakeholders at all levels.
Ready to...
“The future is exciting. Ready?” applies to more than just our customers. We want to infuse this pioneering spirt and enthusiastic embrace of the future into the heart of our company – beginning with our most valued asset, our people.
The employer brand campaign we launched in 2017 is enhancing the way we attract and retain talent by showcasing all the amazing things that are possible with Vodafone. The campaign is organised around four key pillars to inspire the pride and thrill of being part of our company.
►Ready to shape the futureAs part of the campaign, we are developing videos of employees telling their stories around these four pillars. Videos will be featured on our internal channels as well as on social media. The new careers website set to launch in 2018 will deliver campaign messages in an even more engaging format.
As a company with innovation in its DNA, we are committed to life-long learning and continuous improvement. We want the world’s top talent to choose Vodafone because of our reputation for investing in learning and development across the company. The comprehensive training programmes we delivered in 2017 clearly affirmed this commitment.
“Our employees in Qatar are ambitious. They want training, mentoring and coaching. They want to develop and reach their potential while helping the business grow. I’m really excited by how our teams are making this happen.” – Sheikh Hamad Al Thani, Chief Operating Officer
The main objectives of the programmes described below are to develop leadership skills, learn to engage and motivate teams and to become consistent at leading the business.
For high-potential “G band” employees, we have developed the Future Leaders programme to empower them to reach their full potential. The two-year programme evolves over three stages.
►Foundation programme
Grows competencies related to drive, engagement, applied thinking and change. Includes individual coaching and a mini-telecoms MBA covering business acumen, leadership and more. (Length: 6 months)
►Advanced programme
Refines and enhances leadership style, strategic planning, functional skills and more. (Length: 6 months)
►Rotational programme
To experience and explore the business from a different perspective. (Length: 3-6 months)
This programme is for “H band” employees recognised for their potential to develop bigger, broader roles across the business. Participants complete three modules covering: change and context, thought leadership, and understanding innovation. They also benefit from individual coaching and 180-degree feedback. (Length: 6 months)
This training equips leadership teams with the skills to assess the learning and development needs of their direct reports and reach their business objectives. Nearly 700 employees benefited from 33 workshops in 2017 including:
To support our employees to develop and grow in a structured way, Vodafone Qatar has created career path programmes for care, retail and technology. Programmes have empowered employees to improve their performance, resulting in promotions for 12 per cent of front-line staff.
When employees and teams experience a win or achievement – no matter the size – we encourage managers to recognise it with a “shukran” star. While symbolic, shukrans confirm the tremendous value we place on our people and their hard work in Qatar. In 2017, we awarded almost 30 per cent of our employees with a shukran.
Through the Global Hero Programme, four employees with an outstanding story related to the customer experience were selected in 2017. One grand prize winner won a family trip to London and met with the Vodafone Group CEO.
After reviewing our portfolio of employee benefits, we launched two news programmes this year that are proving popular with employees across the business.
We made great progress this year on our journey to support the Qatar National Vision to invest and develop local talent. We “Qatarised” more of our employee roles, moving from 10 to 17 per cent.
Today, 70 per cent of high-potential Qataris are on the Fast Track programme we launched last year to move more Qataris to leadership positions. We are confident that we will soon meet our 20 per cent Qatarisation goal.
Through our Discover Graduate programme, we are identifying the next generation of Vodafone leaders by hiring the best talent coming straight out of university. This programme is key to grow our talent pipeline with diverse young people who are ready to drive Vodafone forward to the next telecoms era. The two-year programme takes participants on a journey across the business.
2017 figures
Vodafone Qatar is committed to increasing the proportion of women in management and leadership roles. This year, we made our first hire as part of the Group’s ReConnect programme, which recruits women on career breaks into management roles.
We are making great efforts in 2018 to “Reconnect” with more talented women and build on our forthcoming gender equality, diversity and inclusion strategies. The Group’s ground-breaking maternity policy announced in March 2015 has helped us to attract and retain more women in Qatar.
Health and safety rules are fully integrated as a core value across Vodafone Qatar. This is reflected among employees, nearly 95 per cent of whom said that they believe we take health and safety rules seriously. This is a 2 per cent gain from last year. Our record in practice is just as strong. In November, we proudly celebrated reaching 1,000 incident-free days in Qatar.
The management team makes health and safety a priority, visiting different locations to support our high standards. This year they visited network sites, data centres and offices across the country.
We support our partners that perform high-risk activities to practice the same level of health and safety standards as us. In November, we invited key vendors to attend Vodafone’s annual health and safety forum to strengthen their awareness and compliance.
Nearly 20 members of our technology team attended a Managing Safety training course to better control high-risk activities and work effectively with third-parties to achieve health and safety targets.
Enhancing employee wellbeing was another priority this year. Activities from football tournaments to athletic challenges helped to increase workplace engagement, motivation and productivity.
On the move
After critically assessing our main office including with an employee survey, we discovered many ways to enhance our workplace productivity, collaboration and engagement.
As a result, we invested in renovations to increase the number of meeting rooms, add collaboration areas, reduce the noise level and improve overall workplace ergonomics. We also improved the lighting and air conditioning. This project was completed in six months without any impact on the staff during working hours.
Today, the main office has 16 meeting room, 10 collaboration areas, acoustic solutions, LED lights, wireless presentation facilities and superior cable management.