MTN Zambia merges with MTN Business
By Nawa Mutumweno – MTN Zambia has merged with MTN Business to become one business entity, it has been learnt. The merger between MTN Business, an internet service provider (ISP) and MTN Zambia, a mobile communications solutions provider, has culminated into the formation of Enterprise Business Unit of MTN Zambia.
The development makes MTN Zambia a complete telecommunications solutions provider for business in voice, data and other related services like data warehousing, fibre connectivity, and cloud services.
According to a statement issues recently, the announcement of the merger coincides with the launch of MTN Zambia’s cloud computing services, a development that puts the mobile phone company and Zambia in a position of leadership in the technological space.
And commenting on the development, MTN Zambia chief executive officer Abdul Ismail said this would now see MTN Zambia provide ‘’end-to-end business solutions to its corporate clientele under one roof’’.
‘’Early this year, we announced our vision to lead the delivery of a bold new digital world to our customers. Under this vision, are various strategic pillars. One of them is a focus on new business streams that will make communication reliable and convenient to all our customers,’’ he said.
‘’We are bringing together two powerful business functions with the sole objective of providing efficient, convenient and innovative enterprise business solutions to businesses of all sizes and in all industries in Zambia,’’ he added.
Until 2010, MTN Business operated as UUNET in Zambia before being acquired by the MTN Group.
MTN Zambia says the launch of its Cloud Services followed similar events in other MTN operations such as Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire.
MTN Cloud Services, the first of its kind in Zambia, provides business automation tools to enterprises across professional services and small and medium enterprisea (SMEs) sectors.
MTN Zambia chief marketing officer Clement Asante said the company’s enterprise customers’ lives and businesses had become ‘’a whole lot brighter with this merger’’.
‘’The impact of digital technology on creating efficiencies and increasing productivity for business cannot be overemphasised. The barrier, unfortunately in Zambia, especially for SMEs and even for some large corporates in taking full advantage of digital technologies has been the huge investment required. We are delighted that this new Enterprise Business unit of MTN Zambia, which will maintain the name MTN Business, we are positioned to address the challenges faced by business in Zambia in enjoying or having access to such digital technologies. Our MTN Cloud Services in particular, will enable SMEs, large companies and even very small-scale entrepreneurs to have access to various computer programmes, storage and services, without having to invest heavily in acquiring such on their own,’’ Asante elaborated.
The bouquet of MTN Cloud Services encompasses cost-effective e-mail and collaborative software such as Microsoft Dynamics CRM, a customer relations management tool as well as security powered by McAfee.
