GET TO KNOW

CMO COUNCIL: Tell us a little about your background and how you got to where you are now.

AMINE: I am the Group Vice President of Marketing & Country Head of Fintech services at Virgin Mobile KSA. I am a Telecommunication professional with over 27 years of experience within the Telco & MVNO industry as Marketing Director, Segment Director, Sales Director, Commercial Director, Managing Director for large Tier 1 Telco companies such as AT&T, SFR, and Kertel.

I am a dynamic marketing strategist with a successful track record in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. I am a very passionate change agent person focused on driving innovative business strategies and process improvements from ideation to implementation. I served as a consultant and board advisor to large MVNO companies in France and the UK. Successfully launched new Telco MVNO operations in the UK, France, Germany, and Saudi Arabia. Continuing to successfully provide brand strategy, marketing strategy, and thought leadership for leading brand Virgin Mobile KSA as one of the fastest-growing MVNOs in the Middle East with operations in KSA, Oman, UAE, and Kuwait. Offering a digital ecosystem of Telco and Fintech services.

CMO COUNCIL: Which digital marketing innovations are most enabling your go-to-market process, customer value creation, and campaign effectiveness?

AMINE: We differentiate by driving innovation to improve the customer experience. The digital landscape continues to change and with it, so do the customer’s needs. The focus is on personalization at every stage of the customer journey to deliver timely, relevant mobile experiences. We deliver a customer-centric experience using the right technologies. Our Digital App offers flexibility, choice, and exciting products for the consumer. Our customers can enjoy the content of various OTT Apps from their mobile through our Direct Carrier Billing services, and soon we will be offering digital mobile wallets to our blue-collar customers to transfer money back to their home countries securely and swiftly through our mobile App.

CMO COUNCIL: What’s the best piece of career advice you’ve been given? Or what career advice would you give to developing marketing leaders?

AMINE: We live in a time when technology moves fast, consumer behaviors are hard to predict and the traditional customer winning methods don’t work anymore. The digital landscape continues to change, and with it, so do the customer’s needs. Marketers have to be more ambitious when it comes to digital services and focus on sustainably differentiating themselves from the competition by driving smarter, more client-centric, and value-based services to consumers. Data analytics in marketing, used in the right way, will help your business not just stay and function but thrive in this world of constant innovation.

Modern marketing isn’t just ‘going digital’ – it’s having an omnichannel strategy to build touchpoints across all channels your customers use, both online and offline

Share your insights with us on our latest survey, Signals from the Noise, here and receive a complimentary copy of the findings. 

CMO COUNCIL: What marketing skills will be needed in the future and why?

AMINE: Analytical skills are becoming the core competencies in marketing. Data is the key to behavior analysis and how customers interact with your products and services. Data helps improve marketing personalization and segmentation to provide customers with the right product or service and customer experience. It offers your business a competitive intelligence tool to outperform competitors.

Marketing is the key to customer acquisition and data is critical to that success. Building data analytics into marketing strategy empowers marketing and sales teams by providing the ability to measure the impact of each marketing investment. Data enables marketers to confidently identify which parts of the marketing efforts deliver the optimal return on investment (ROI), including the performance of channels and products. With the right data analytics, you can accurately forecast results and measure the progress of each marketing activity against defined milestones. You will be able to optimise your marketing in real time, accurately plan out your future marketing long-term plans.

Data analytics is crucial in Marketing to target specific customers with CVM offers depending on their ARPU (average revenue per unit), AON ( Age on network) and LTV ( Life Time Value) to ensure their retention on your network. If your business has a goal of staying competitive in today’s hyper-competitive landscape, you must make your marketing a data-driven process.

CMO COUNCIL: What market shifts and trends are impacting customer and competitive dynamics in your industry?

AMINE: The telco industry is very dynamic and technology is evolving rapidly. 5G technology, IoT, ESIM, and AI-driven content are some of the biggest changes taking place at the moment, impacting customer and competitive dynamics.

5G: This is the next generation of telecom networks. It is the fastest, most robust technology the world has ever seen.

IoT: From hairbrushes to scales, consumer and industrial devices are embedding chips into their products to collect and communicate data. Smart cities and connected cars are some of the big IoT projects at the moment.

e-SIM: The main advantage of an e-SIM is that customers can quickly change operators at any time without a new physical SIM card. It will also be compatible with all telecom operators. The e-SIM allows us to have more than two phone numbers associated with our smart device

AI-driven content: Marketing may be the biggest and most game-changing trend yet. Google is taking this to the next level by using AI to facilitate better matches to search queries using its RankBrain algorithm. RankBrain is a machine learning (AI) algorithm that Google uses to sort the search results.

CMO COUNCIL: What is a quote or saying you live by?

AMINE: Leadership is very complex and after reading and studying about leadership every year since the mid-90s, I know I will always be a student. Leadership development for me will never end. Getting feedback from others allows you to continue to learn and grow.

Three little words extraordinary leaders should never be afraid to use: “I was wrong.” Learning requires keeping an open mind, listening, and exploring.

I will always live by this quote “Great leaders are great learners“