Mtn Nigeria Outsources Site Maintenance to Contractors Under Site Integrated Maintenace Services

Change Case:

MTN NIGERIA OUTSOURCES SITE MAINTENANCE TO CONTRACTORS

UNDER SITE INTEGRATED MAINTENACE SERVICES (SIMS) Project:

1.1.0) Brief Introduction of MTN Nigeria:

MTN Nigeria is part of the MTN Group South Africa, a multinational mobile communication service provider based in business presence in 21 countries in Africa and the Middle East. MTN Nigeria strives to be the leading network operator in these countries (www.MTNonline .com 15-10-2010)

MTN Nigeria currently has over 6000 cell sites that cover all the 36 states and almost every community in the country. Its Network Operations unit-The Network Group Operations- is at the centre of the heat to pursue 24hrs quality network availability at a minimum performance of 98% (MTN Nigeria unpublished internal memo).

MTN Site Maintenance activities involve the following activities:

RBS Maintenance:

Microwave Transmission Media and

Power

1.1.1) The Network Operations Unit before the Change:

Over the years, MTN Nigeria has been named the best Operator in Nigeria, for example in 2005 MTN Nigeria Communications Limited has emerged the Best Mobile Operator of the Year 2005 at the Nigerian Telecoms Awards ceremony(This day News online 8.24.2006). This success could be attributed to the remarkable quality results in its cell site maintenance strategy. Different from other Telecom Operators in Nigeria, all cell site maintenance activities were done in house by the Network Operations unit.

1.1.2) Change Description

The implantation of the change will initiate the takeover of 6000 cell site maintenance by suppliers under the Site Integrated Maintenance System (MTN Nigeria unpublished internal memo).

The implementation of SIMS project is a transitional kind of change that is deliberate and planned from the top by management (MCIO, 2010). By adopting this strategic change, MTN Nigeria hopes to cut its maintenance cost by 20% and improve on its Quality without increasing its headcount in the site maintenance unit, even with the continuous increase in the number of cell sites.

The change impacted on the following:

Identifying and managing project risk second edition by Tom Kendrick, American management association, 2009, new york

A guide to project management body of knowledge (PMBOK 4 th Edition, 2008) published by PMI, newton square Pennsylvania