1

Future Workshops: A key for Service Delivery Improvement in Rwanda Telecom Sector
Benjamin YABAGENGA
MSc in ICT Programme, National University of Rwanda Butare, Rwanda
byabagenga@nur.ac.rw

Abstract In this paper, we have put our efforts to explain how future workshops (FWS) can play a major role in Service Delivery (SD) improvement in Rwanda Telecom sector. We have also explained the factors that influence the difficulty of SD in that sector. FWS can help to improve service delivery. We have summarized the phases of FWS in our own algorithm. The SWOT matrix has also qualified as a way to understand the companys harmful and helpful factors that influence the SD and utility optimization. Keywords-- Workshop. Future Workshop.FWS, Service Delivery. QoS. SWOT matrix. Utility

competition, technology as well as modularization is the factors that harm the service delivery effectiveness [5].

I. INTRODUCTION Many researchers have proven that FWS contributes heavily to the success of both public and private institutions all around the globe [1][2]. However, many organizations do not rely on the use of FWS to understand their socio-economic concerns as well the way to overcome the current challenging situation for a best success [2]. In Rwanda , where two Telecom companies MTN Rwanda and TIGO Rwanda are reaping heavily following Telecom regulator announcement, Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Authority (RURA), that it has withdrawn Rwandatels mobile phone license[3]. The reason to exit Rwandatel from that licence was the penetration and pricing policy [3]. However, Rwandatel's, Chief Commercial Officer said that was not planning to appeal RURA's decision to revoke the operator's mobile licence [4]. One can ask himself why these challenges have not been overcome before the revocation. Is there any way that the Telecom industry should conduct FWS to understand their SWOT before such incident occurs? This trial deals with the way in which the Telecom Company sector in Rwanda should emphasise on service delivery improvement by means of FWS. II. SERVICE DELIVERY (SD) AND UTILITY Professional services firms have the assignment to improve their service delivery methods to increase the client value and profitability and lower cost for their success and sustainability increasing number of clients, market globalization,

Fig. 1 Factors influencing the difficulty of service delivery [5]

The above figure shows that working with competitors is a key factor that makes SD very difficult, which means that competitors must innovate and deliver services at lower cost. However, service delivery and pricing policy must comply with utility. Quantifying utility is a challenging issue as utility could not be measured or observed directly, so instead economists devised a way to measure actual behaviour and assume that, in a perfectly competitive equilibrium, this behaviour reveals the underlying relative utilities. These 'revealed preferences', as they were named by [6], were revealed in price.

A. Service Delivery in Rwanda Telecom Sector Recognition at the highest level has been given to the need to improve customer service delivery in Rwanda and the Cabinet has appointed a National Task Force to take forward implementing recommendations agreed at the 2009 government retreat [7]. None can neglect the fact that

2
improvement of SD can contribute the socio-economic growth of Rwanda. Commercial enterprises are concerned about poor service delivery by a number of service providers. Business and other service providers can only deliver excellence if they receive excellent services. Service delivery is generally dependent on delivery by other service providers. Poor service delivery is seen as a major constraint by business in Rwanda. Services that are seen as being especially poor are transport (mentioned by around 80%), financial service (just over 70%), electricity (just over 60%), Government bureaucracy (70% construction and 60% service) and Telecom sector (66% construction and 50% service) [7]. Reference [7] shows that about 50% of customers complain about service delivery to at least one provider ever month but that only about a quarter of those who complain are satisfied with how their complaint is handled. Indeed, Telecom sector plays also a major role in that change as without this facility, e-government projects should fail. In 2010 where MTN Rwanda, Tigo and Rwandatel were operating, the mobile penetration was 2.7 million (30% of total population), Internet penetration was 12%. 3G services have also got a great number of users [8]. The increasing competition have also improved the quality of services and reduced the telecom service price drastically, which allows all the people in Rwanda to have access to ICT services. Latest statistics from RURA (March 2011) show that MTN Rwanda is still the market leader with 2,587,694 active mobile subscribers followed by Tigo Rwanda with 692,950 and Rwandatel with 345,771. The figures suggest that overall mobile phone penetration rose by 1 percentage point to 35 percent. The regulator is also encouraging the companies to reduce the cost of handsets from Rwf8, 000 to Rwf2, 000 the cheapest [4]. B. . Telecom industry and customer satisfaction Organizations need to retain existing customers while targeting non-customers. Measuring customer satisfaction provides an indication of how successful the organization is at providing products and/or services to the market place [9]. Customer satisfaction is measured at the individual level, but it is almost always reported at an aggregate level. It can be, and often is, measured along various dimensions [10]. With the development of information technologies, in many markets firms increasingly have information about their customers that result from the consumers' past choice behaviour. The fact that a consumer chose a certain firm's product in the past reveals to that firm, under certain market conditions, some information about that particular consumer. Given this new information, the firm can better target its market practices with respect to that consumer [11][12]. Some firms argue that the pursuit of customer satisfaction increases costs and thereby reduces their productivity [13]. In economics, for example, the relationship between productivity and customer satisfaction is generally viewed as negative. Customer satisfaction-utility is modelled as a function of product attributes. Increasing the level of utility improving raw materials, adding features or service personnel requires increasing the level of product attributes and, therefore, costs [13]. III. FUTURE WORKSHOP (FWS) AND SERVICE DELIVERY The best and suitable way to change the current situation in a system is to criticize the actual situation, then to dream about a preferable future situation, and finally to find ways to move from the actual situation to a preferable one [2]. The purpose of the FWS is a working method of self-controlled learning [1] that consists of: critique, learning, team work, democracy, and empowerment [2]. The main phases of the FWS are: critique, fantasy and implementation [1,2,14]. However, FWS requires tangible efforts and commitment from both facilitators and participants. The classic case of a citizen group performing a FWS for their actions has barely happened since the 1980s due to the weakness of the initiative movement. The most frequent form of application is to be found in educational institutions with the emphasis on educational and organisational topics [1]. Methodically, the future workshops can be roughly classified according to which ex-tent they promote creativity and/or how strong the moderator emphasizes non-rational performance elements [1, 2].

A. Making your Company Successful through FWS In order to choose suitable a FWS theme, the following can be risen [15] : Make sure your company has enough skills to deliver a range of services that are requested by your customer, - You must have a picture of what other firms or competitors are doing in your domain - Be in tune with both national and local policy drivers as well utility regulators [16]. - Make a plan that addresses productivity and value for money - Will commissioning organisations and the service using public want to buy the services you offer and the workforce you have to deliver them? However, self assessment is not always easy, thus facilitator is needed. -

3
The main objective of FWS is not to find faults but to help the firm to identify the weak point and come out with a possible suggestion-a desired future solution of a problem. The following is the FWS algorithm: Begin Choose and Communicate FWS Theme and Objectives () If (Participants are available AND Understand Objectives) Then { Start Preparation Phase Facilitate participants CritiquePhase (); } CritiquePhase (Participants,Theme) { Brainstorming CollectCritiquePoints; Cluster(Ideas); Evaluate(Ideas); FantasyPhase(); } FantasyPhase() { utopia Work; BrainWriting; WriteIdeaStore ImplementationPhase(); } ImplementationPhase() { Evaluate IdeaStore BuildSWOTMatrix(); ActionPlan(); } ActionPlan(Who,What,Where,When) { WriteReport(); } End
Fig 2. The FWS algorithm Source: Own adoption from FWS phases in [2]

S and W refer to internal factors whereas O and T include external ones [18]. The following table will give a brief overview of SWOT matrix.
TABLE I SWOT MATRIX OVERVIEW

HELPFUL to achieving the goal Strengths Things that are good now, maintain them, build on them and use as leverage Opportunities Things that are good for the future, prioritize them, capture them, build on them and optimize

INTERNAL facts/ factors of the organization EXTERNAL facts/ factors of the environment in which the organization operates

HARMFUL/ RISKS to achieving the goal Weaknesses Things that are good now, maintain them, build on them and use as leverage Threats Things that are bad for the future, put in plans to manage them or counter them

Source: RAPIDIB

Reference [18] also stipulates that the main aims of SWOT analysis is to reveal your competitive advantages, analyse your pricing profitability, and prepare your company for problems solving as well as action plan development.

B. Understanding the companys SWOT matrix The SWOT matrix is the concept of determining strengths (S), weaknesses (W), threats (T), and opportunities (O) in your company [17]. The origins of the SWOT analysis technique is credited by Albert Humphrey, who led a research project at Stanford University in the 1960s and 1970s using data from many top companies.

IV. CONCLUSION While the number of customers requesting the services from the Telecom industry in Rwanda is increasing day after day, the issue of service delivery improvement is challenging. Customer satisfaction and utility optimization is also a high demanding factor in terms of cost and technology. The Telecom companies should adopt the FWS method in order to assess their service delivery method as well SWOT to identify where they are strongly fit and vulnerable where they should defend and attack and finally elaborate the action plan. This paper has explained how successful should be the Telecom sector through adoption of the above mentioned method the algorithm for the FWS. However, the selection of participants and workshop theme is a crucial activity that requires more efforts and commitment.

4
REFERENCES
[10] E.W. Anderson, C. Fornell, and S.K. Mazvancheryl, Customer Satisfaction Value Shareholder, vol. 68, 2011, pp. 172-185. J.M. Villas-Boas, Dynamic Competition with Customer Recognition, The RAND Journal of Economics, vol. 30, 1999, p. 604. E.W. Anderson, Customer Satisfaction and Price Tolerance, vol. 7, 2011, pp. 265-274. E.W. Anderson, C. Fornell, R.T. Rust, E.W. Anderson, C. Fornell, and R.T. Rust, and Profitability : Satisfaction , Differences and Services Productivity , Between Goods, differences, vol. 16, 2011, pp. 129-145. F. Workshop, Future Workshop, pp. 1-4. CareLearning, Planning a Future Workshop http://www.carelearning.org.uk/attachments/article/316/Presentatio nWFP.pdf ( Visisted on 2/06/2011). RURA, RURA,Regulation on Promotion, http://rura.gov.rw/docs/REGULATION_ON_PROMOTION.pdf (visisted on 1/06/2011). N. Lalitha, Indian Industry Pharmaceutical in WTO Regime of Industry, Economic And Political Weekly, vol. 37, 2011, pp. 35423555. RAPIDIB, SWOT Analysis,http://rapidbi.com/created/swotanalysis/.

[1]

H. Apel, The Future Workshop, Texte - Revue de Critique et de Theorie Litteraire, 2004. R.V.V. Vidal, The Future Workshop, pp. 1-21. R. Chamber, Rwandatels license revoked permanently, http://www.rwandachamber.org/news/rwandatels+license+revoked +permanently. A. Africa, Mobile Subscribers Rise 51 Percent, http://allafrica.com/stories/201103170162.html.

[11]

[2] [3]

[12]

[13]

[4]

[14] [5] SAP Service Delivery Innovation, http://www.rossdawsonblog.com/SAP_Service_Delivery_Innovatio n_White_Paper.pdf. P.A. Samuelson, A Note on Measurement of Utility, The Review of Economic Studies, vol. 4, Feb. 1937, p. 155. I. of P.A. and R.- Rwanda, Developing Customer Service Delivery Policy, Policy Analysis, 2010. [17] [8] Republic of Rwanda, High level segment- World Telecommunication, Rwanda Report-World Telecommunication Development Conference, vol. ITU,, 2010, pp. 1-3. [18] [9] Wikipedia, Customer Satisfaction, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer_satisfaction. [15]

[6]

[16]

[7]