Job Purpose:

The Carriers Relations Specialist is accountable to the Carriers Relations Team Leader, for commercial and administrative support that contributes to the department’s objectives of being effective and efficient in end-to-end negotiations, management, and delivery of Zain’s Carriers Relations, objectives.

Key Tasks/Accountabilities

/Accountabilities

• Administer all aspects of new and existing Interconnect agreements: renegotiate commercial conditions when applicable, control contract expiration dates. 

• Analyze traffic patterns and report abnormalities.

• Combat fraud in the wholesale area.

• Administer all aspects of in national/international domains.

• Manage National and International Traffic business.

• Maintain existing accounts within the National / International domain and ensure those accounts deliver maximum profit to ZAIN SD by constantly seeking to meet the needs of ZAIN SD and safeguarding the current business. 

• Develop new business within the National / International by building relationships with new operators. 

• Undertake strategic analysis of current National / International relationships to determine whether new entrants into the market should be approached and business relationships established with them.

• Ensure agreements business are bi-lateral whereby both ZAIN SD and its business partners build strong relationships and secure the traffic flow both ways with volume agreements in a competitive market.

• Manage the National / International accounts effectively to ensure all business partners are contacted regularly and their current and future needs are addressed, and the relationships are strengthened. 

• Participating in setting strategic plans and overall strategy for the wholesale, and implementing those plans to ensure delivery of targets. 

• Constantly develop own knowledge of the wholesale frameworks within the countries in the region to identify opportunities for ZAIN SD.

• Build and maintain relationships with all operators in the region. 

• Maintain a knowledge management system to capture all regional account/relationship data which can be made available to the commercial sector and other units within ZAIN SD. 

• Provide regular and ad-hoc reports on a daily, weekly, and monthly or when required

• Continuously analyze and negotiate based on the traffic profile of ZAIN SD to achieve the best cost per minute.

• Analyze and build network based on needs of ZAIN SD operations across the globe at the optimum cost.

• Represent ZAIN SD at various international wholesale events and forums for building and capitalizing relationships.

• Daily monitor voice traffic trends related and identify abnormalities/opportunities/weakness, and propose/take the necessary actions to increase the daily incoming traffic.

• Provide regular reports Monthly reporting to the team leader containing: 

• Work with wholesale billing and settlement teams to ensure proper invoices and billing of the client.

• Coordinate with all internal teams to configure the billing system with the appropriate tariffs, and traffic routing.

• To provide, develop and update strategic and financial plans of international telecom accounts such as - but not limited to - (international gateways, international Hubs, and aggregators)

• Take the necessary actions to route the outgoing voice traffic based on LCR or quality parameters (QoS).

• Monitor the Quality of Service (QoS), and capacity volume & utilization with the partners and internal stakeholders, and expand the links where necessary. 

• Expand and optimize the number of interconnect agreements in line with the wholesale strategies.

• Be the primary point of contact towards Partners on all wholesale and interconnect matters.

• Establish and implement a clear relationship management strategy towards Partners to maximize benefits to ZAIN SD;

• Ensure that ZAIN SD minimizes its national and international interconnection costs, through efficient call routing, whilst maintaining the desired quality of service standards.

• Introduce new carriers or solutions that allow us to reduce our interconnect or service costs.

• Ensure that we efficiently manage, develop and maximize our interconnect revenues (national and international incoming).

• Participate in setting and executing the Team’s yearly strategies, targets, and objectives and align them with the company business plan and assure business performance is up to the strategy, road map, and business plan.

• Ensure compliance with all applicable policies & regulatory requirements on Information Security.

Dimensions:

• Specialist role – 3 years of relevant professional experience

• Accountable for effective interconnect agreements, revenues, and cost operations.

• Provide analysis of  international and national traffic analysis

• BSc. Of Engineering, computer science or BA, or relevant field 

• Minimum 2 years previous experience in the wholesale role in a reputed organization

• Demonstrable market Telecommunication knowledge and commercial acumen; and have spent significant time in the Telecom Operators in the same/related roles.

• Excellent command of written and spoken English

• MBA will be an advantage

• Well understanding of wholesale businesses

• Strong knowledge of Telecom services agreements, standards, services context, and settlement procedures between Operators and carriers based on the commercial trends

• Preparation and execution section plans including budgeting 

• Establish and maintain sound working relationships with stakeholders and other Teleco.

• In-depth understanding of the Sudan market and ZAIN business strategy, goals, and competitive environment

• High analytical skill

• In-depth knowledge of financial systems and procedures

• Relevant IT understanding

• Understanding of Telecommunication Network architecture and functionality and interconnection /Access technical matters

Skills:

• Highly developed communication skills (verbal and written)

• Excellent team player

• Highly Negotiation Skills

• Highly Presentation skills

• Highly developed reporting skills

• Highly Planning and organizing skills

• Ability to build excellent relationships with internal departments and external operators/carriers

• Ms office, data mining software skills are Mandatory

Key Behaviours for Success

• Team-worker

• Effective and speedy decision making

• Communication, both oral and written in local language and business English

• Sound business acumen, demonstrates empathy with operation/line issues

• Builds good working relationships quickly

• Self-starter, able to use own initiative

• Adherence to company policies and procedures and remains objective with local/cultural issues.

• Tenacity

• Strategic thinker

• Conceptual thinker

• Analytical thinker

• Tolerance of Ambiguity

• Concern for impact

• Strategic influencer

• Situational sensitive

• Results focused

• Seeks critical information

• People development orientation