25 May, 2022; Muscat, Sultanate of Oman – leading integrated telecommunications services provider Omantel signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Microsoft to collaborate on driving business value and accelerating ICT innovation to support the telco’s digital transformation strategy, streamline and improve services across the Sultanate.

Microsoft will work with Omantel to develop the necessary foundational capabilities required for their workforce, assist with streamline operations and business support systems, transform customer experience, optimize next-gen networks, and accelerate innovation and growth.

“The rapid acceleration towards a progressively digital society and changing customer expectations are driving an increased need for innovation to ensure a fully connected environment,” said xxx, Omantel. “This strategic collaboration with Microsoft will serve to reinforce our ICT transformation efforts to build a connected community fortified by innovation in the Sultanate of Oman, enabling an improved customer experience for both consumers and enterprises alike.”

Microsoft Oman and Bahrain Country Manager, Saif Hilal Al Hosni said; “As a trusted digital transformation and digitization partner, we are committed to helping our customers accelerate innovation and build new revenue streams by leveraging powerful advanced technologies such as 5G. By uniting our innovations with Omantel’s expertise we will be able to ensure greater resilience and efficiencies for consumers and businesses across Oman. This new agreement builds on our longstanding partnership with Omantel to accelerate technology adoption and empower people and organizations in the country to achieve more.”

Under the new agreement, Microsoft will engage with regional and international solution providers to bring the latest global innovations in digital transformation, digitization, cloud adoption, big data and data science, AI, cybersecurity, capacity building and skilling to Oman.

Additionally, Microsoft and Omantel will partner on the development of ideation workshops with technical and business stakeholders to evaluate various technology ideas and proposals within a high-level implementation roadmap and collaborate on the delivery of technology awareness sessions centered around new Microsoft technologies in sports innovation, go to market planning and development of the startup and entrepreneurship ecosystem in Oman. Omantel will provide support for the required cloud infrastructure to host the technology workshops and proof of concept, facilitate the connection with business and technical stakeholders in target departments, and provide technical and financial support – as needed – for the potential implementation of the different solutions.

The importance of the telecommunications industry has risen rapidly, and significantly, over the past two years as connectivity continues to underpin any efforts to realize a digital economy in the Middle East. On top of this, the world of work is undergoing substantial change as a result of the shift towards remote hybrid environments, driving the need for transformation. As such telcos are placing digital innovation at the core of strategies to meet the requirements of the future. According to McKinsey, digital transformation can yield a more than 30% increase in gross profit for telecommunications operators.

Omantel’s digital transformation strategy aims to use technology and automation to drive superior customer experience through personalized customer engagement and a unified selling experience, reinvent productivity, and significantly improve time to market for new services.

Microsoft empowers telecommunications organizations to achieve more through a trusted and secure platform for productivity, business operations, network optimization, customer insights, personalized experiences, and service innovation.