MTN Business has entered an “exciting” era as the telecommunications group shifts from being a predominantly mobile operator to becoming an end-to-end integrated technology solutions provider in a “new world” of business.

MTN aimed to distinguish its rapidly evolving enterprise business unit from its consumer services and position the unit as a global leader in information and communications technology (ICT) solutions for business, MTN South Africa chief enterprise business officer Kanagaratnam Lambotharan said on Tuesday.

Currently, the group’s mobile operations accounted for 70% of the business, while nonmobile integrated solutions accounted for the remaining 30%.

This year, Lambotharan expected the unit’s nonmobile segment to grow by 25% to 30% and, over the next three years, double, as customers leveraged the group’s expansive Africa-wide network.

MTN had, over the past few years, injected millions of rands into building an expansive, protected, continent-wide network and, with
ever-increasing demand from the small, medium-sized and microenterprise (SMME) market segment, an “exciting” opportunity had emerged to provide suitable comprehensive ICT services.

Lambotharan said MTN leveraged its presence in several countries across Africa and the Middle East, and four diverse undersea cable investments to deliver solutions to start-ups or multinationals for a smarter, more efficient and more profitable business.

The group’s expansive fibre network, which had covered over 9 000 km linking Cape Town, Durban, Bloemfontein and Johannesburg, besides others, would be extended to corporate buildings as a “last mile”.

Currently, about 2 000 of MTN’s base stations were connected to the fibre network, compared with three years ago when only 100 sites were linked, and about 3 500 base stations were connected to microwave technology.

The SMME segment was “very important” and the company was examining value propositions to address the requirements of these companies.

Business software and intelligence systems were helping companies to manage their productivity and profitability and MTN continued to develop products to mitigate expensive and difficult-to-maintain systems, which smaller companies simply could not afford.

MTN Business offered a range of solutions, including cloud services, data centre hosting, Internet services, managed services, call centre solutions and voice-over Internet protocol, as well as enterprise resource planning software in a mobile cloud format to enable small – and large – businesses to manage and monitor their operations in real time.

“A huge amount of product is being developed and several new products will be launched this year,” Lambotharan said, adding that the next product, to be unveiled on Wednesday, would be a cloud-hosted machine-to-machine platform.

This followed the introduction of several services over the past year.

In September, MTN Business introduced its global multiprotocol label switching virtual private network (MPLS VPN), connecting key network point-of-presence in South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Djibouti, Tanzania, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Uganda, Zambia, Senegal and the UK.

The MPLS VPN network enabled companies access to various business applications, including telepresence, video- and audioconferencing, file-sharing and data hosting, while allowing several sectors to completely outsource their wide area network (WAN), local area network (LAN) and customer premises equipment (CPE) management requirements.

Further, an agreement, signed in February, between MTN and international telecommunications provider PCCW Global, would enable MTN to expand coverage of its global VPN to countries and continents, such as Europe, Asia and North America, where it did not have a presence, and enable the offering of WAN, LAN and managed CPE services in the markets where PCCW was present.

PCCW’s global network and managed MPLS solutions connected over 130 countries and 3 000 cities.

In December, MTN partnered with global Internet incubator Rocket Internet and Millicom International Cellular to develop Internet businesses in Africa through Africa Internet Holding (AIH) – an exclusive vehicle to develop e-commerce businesses.

AIH, which boasted a presence in 13 countries on the continent, including South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt, Morocco, Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana, had developed several successful e-commerce ventures in the past 18 months, including Jumia, Zando, Kaymu, Jovago, Lamudi, Carmudi, Easytaxi and Hellofood.

The transaction, subject to regulatory approval, was expected to close during the second quarter of 2014.

Meanwhile, MTN late last year launched MTN Cloud Services, a bouquet of distinct cloud services, in Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Uganda and Zambia, following a successful pilot in six major markets across Africa.

MTN planned to roll out the service to several other markets next year, including Cameroon and South Africa.

The company pointed out that the pilot made MTN the first mobile network operator in Africa to adopt the cloud service brokerage model.

The services were aimed at making SMMEs more efficient and entailed the centralisation of access to services where a third party, in this case MTN, acted as the single point of contact for customers.

“The focus is on convenience, as centralising access to services eases the administrative burden for businesses, where instead of dealing with multiple service providers, they now deal with one,” MTN said at the time of the launch.

MTN Cloud Services included cost-effective e-mail and collaborative software, such as Microsoft Dynamics customer relations management, Mozypro Online Backup and on-demand video conferencing Dialcom, as well as antivirus and antispam security software powered by McAfee.

The products were all in line with the company’s vision to “lead the delivery of a bold new digital world”, for which MTN Business embarked on a pan-African brand positioning media campaign to create awareness.

The campaign, launched through multiple channels, including television, print and digital platforms, told the story of “how integrated technology is enabling businesses and stimulating the growth” of large and small enterprises across business segments and geographies.

The campaign, set to run for another month or so, used the story of the world’s second-most traded commodity, the coffee bean, to demonstrate the role of connectivity and integrated technology from MTN Business in the business value chain leading to the delivery of a filled cup of coffee.