Kamil Hilali

KUWAIT: Zain Group, a leading telecom innovator in seven markets in the Middle East and Africa recently participated in the virtual Capacity Middle East 2021 conference, where Kamil Hilali, the company's Chief Strategy Officer and the newly-appointed CEO of Zain Global Services (Wholesale), announced a significant restructuring and new strategy of Zain Group's wholesale division, an essential part of Zain's '4Sight' strategy.

Hilali was the subject of an engaging fireside discussion during the conference whereby he elaborated on Zain Group's new wholesale business vision and its enormous potential. Zain Global Services consolidates and manages the capacity, voice and roaming businesses across Zain operating companies and will ultimately evolve to become the single interface for all Zain operating company requirements as well as for other international carriers having requirements within Zain's footprint.

The aim of Zain Global Services is to become a truly regional carrier and open up new revenue streams for the Group through local, regional, and international activities. To this goal, the company has revamped its strategy and vision to create value for Zain operating companies by achieving efficiencies on their cost base. Zain's scale and aggregated demand is also set to allow the business to invest in new assets and better leverage existing ones across its operating footprint.

Looking to transform to become a truly regional carrier and open up new revenue streams, Zain Global Services stands ready to work with regional and international partners to identify and create new opportunities. During his fireside conversation at Capacity Middle East, Kamil Hilali commented, "Wholesale, and wholesale consolidation, offer a fantastic opportunity to face what has historically been a declining legacy business, and breath new, profitable life into it. Any telecom group willing to prepare for the future has to overcome underlying infrastructure challenges in order to become global in nature and establish vibrant international infrastructure that blends connectivity with computing power."

Hilali continued, "Zain Global Services can be the perfect partner to any business seeking connectivity or a presence in the Middle East. In the coming months, we look forward to announcing our participation in some exciting global projects that will define the entity's new business paradigm which integrates a distributed mesh architecture made up of subsea and terrestrial infrastructure with a state-of-the-art layer of hyperscale and edge Data Centers".

Moreover, during Capacity Middle East 2021 conference, Hilali participated in keynote panel where leading regional figures in the Wholesale and Carrier arena discussed the future of Regional Connectivity, Innovation, Hyperscale Presence and the Competitive Landscape.

Over the last several years, Zain has been evolving to become a fully integrated service provider and has been focusing on enterprise and B2B segments for additional synergies and growth. Given that the wholesale industry has at its core the transformation of the infrastructure enabling global connectivity, Zain considers the development of its wholesale business as a key area to the telco's overall transformation.