As the rate of industry disruption picks up speed, the Etisalat Group will accelerate and enrich the development of its portfolio of open innovation initiatives essential for competition in the digital world. As part of this, the Etisalat Group will adopt a range of open innovation tools – such as scouting in major global innovation hubs, working more extensively with ecosystem partners, including start-ups, and remaining open to different investment vehicles – to fast-track the Group’s achievement of its ambitious vision. Revenue growth, digital capability development, customer experience improvement, and efficiency optimisation will serve as anchors for this strategy. Etisalat Group is expanding its product portfolio into related verticals beyond the core to create new engines of growth and increase revenue diversification. Nonetheless, a fundamental principle of the Group’s innovation strategy is to strengthen and build on the core business by leveraging established competences and assets.

The realisation of the Etisalat Group’s vision and the execution of the associated strategy requires robust capability and competence development. As such, the Etisalat Group will focus on enriching and developing a digitally aligned culture, enhancing collaboration both within and between operating companies, implementing effective succession management, facilitating the development and retention of existing talent, and initiating vigorous and efficient measures for the acquisition of new talent to meet the growing needs of the digital world.

The Etisalat Group is taking full advantage of the aforementioned digital opportunities. This is evidenced by, among others, Etisalat UAE’s establishment of Etisalat Digital, a dedicated unit that drives digital transformation by enabling enterprises and governments to become smarter. The unit has become a major contributor to incremental revenue growth for Etisalat UAE operations. Going forward, Etisalat Digital will develop its unique competencies to extend across the Etisalat Group’s footprint to capitalise on the growing opportunities within the region, by leveraging organic as well as inorganic opportunities and continuing to employ best-fit operating models.

The Etisalat Group’s strategy will remain open to inorganic growth opportunities through majority control of well-positioned operators within target geographies of Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe. Meanwhile, the Group will continue to explore opportunities to optimise its portfolio in order to balance growth and shareholder returns.

The Etisalat Group continues to provide strategic and operational support for all operating companies to maintain and improve their market positions by defending their core businesses and enhancing digital capabilities. The focus is on driving excellence across sales and marketing, IT/network, procurement, and regulatory agenda management. In particular, the Group actively manages customer experiences to offer an optimal balance between digital and traditional channels for a true omni-channel experience. End-to-end digitisation will both complement and enable these focus areas, which will centre on key technologies, such as big data, artificial intelligence and robotics. As some of the operating companies have already achieved stronghold status and operate in more advanced digital markets, their transformative efforts have shifted towards more intense focus to become increasingly agile, digital and efficient.
Collectively, these efforts will yield a portfolio of stronghold operations that will maximise shareholder value.