Kuwait's Wataniya Telecom breaks new ground with Oracle Customer Relationship Management

Full roll out and deployment is now in progress, with call-centre agents already live on the system today, following a "soft" launch in September.

The year-long Oracle CRM project was implemented by HP Consulting involved a number of Oracle E-Business Suite modules including Oracle Call Centre, Oracle Email Centre, Oracle Telesales, Oracle Fulfilment Manager, Oracle Order Management, Oracle Inventory and Oracle Support. HP Consulting provided the necessary integration with back-end applications and data sources, as well as project management and business process optimisation.

"Our primary objective was to enhance the customer experience in their dealings with Wataniya, following our core strategy of being closer to our customers," said Fuad Al Ablani, Deputy General Manager of Wataniya. "We're growing significantly as an organisation, and this investment gives us a scalable technology that can grow with the size of our operations and subscriber base."

Joseph Hanania, General Manager for HP Middle East, commented: "The Oracle CRM solution allows Wataniya to offer its customers the enhanced level of services that reinforces the operator's market leadership. The constant flow of unique value-added services and products can be communicated to customers as required on a consumer and business level."

Wataniya's focus was to ensure that Oracle CRM enabled business and customer interface enhancements as the key drivers of the solution. The programme that has been implemented allows customer information to be shared by multiple employees while streamlining existing processes, providing more flexibility at the customer service level interface, as well as a comprehensive return on investment and a competitive edge in a rapidly expanding industry.

"The level of integration with the Oracle-based billing system (BSCS) provides near real-time customer synchronisation and complex functionality, such as the transfer of a customer from pre-paid to post-paid via the CRM solution," Mr Al Ablani explained. "This type of activity is completed smoothly and without interruption, so that the customer receives instant feedback and no delays.

"Wataniya's key differentiator has always been its relationship with its customers, and the investment we make in strengthening that relationship, both in Kuwait and across our regional operations. Today we are giving them access to greater choice, more flexibility and by far the best call-centre service in the Middle East."

Husam Dajani, Oracle's vice president for the Middle East and Africa region, said: "Wataniya took a very bold step by building its CRM approach on an integrated 360-degree view of their customers. This will inevitably help Wataniya take the lead in the area of customer service in this highly competitive telecommunications market. We are impressed by the excellent results achieved by HP and Wataniya project team and look forward to contributing to the next phases of the project."