Senior Specialist: Gaming at MTN

Mission/ Core purpose of the Job

Responsible for accelerating and driving the development of MTN Gaming product and content portfolio and to ensure alignment to business strategy, profitability and continuous improvement.
The Senior Specialist is also responsible for contributing towards MTN’s overall strategic goals, to achieve profitable growth and to continuously improve the operations performance.

The Senior Specialist: Gaming reports to the Senior Manager: Gaming

• Ensure effective implementation of the strategy by means of providing structure, frameworks, models, plans and tracking services and partner development and performance.
• Conduct regular review of the performance of services and partners to ensure its alignment with the changing dynamics of the internal and external ecosystem
• Context (Global influences, environmental / industry demands, organizational mission etc.)
• MTN is entering a new phase in its lifecycle where operational and commercial excellence has become critical for success. The urgency for change has become more heightened amidst increased competitive intensity across all markets including MTN SA.

The Senior Specialist: Gaming, must therefore ensure the successful delivery in context of:

• An expertise-based multicultural organisation
• A dynamic and evolving field of Telecommunications
• Revolutionary workforce practices which are bringing together global labour markets
• Management of executive and local shareholder expectations across MTN SA and Group
• Achievement of top quartile operating efficiency and effectiveness through scale and common policies and processes

Dynamic legal and regulatory environment

• Convergence in SA and exploration of non-traditional revenue streams requiring complex interpretation and structuring
• Evolving industry sector constantly presenting new challenges and opportunities to the core businesses
• Rapid horizontal and vertical expansion of MTN SA, in terms of size, products, customers and geographic distribution

Key Performance Areas: Core, essential responsibilities / outputs of the position (KPA's)

Key Deliverables

The Senior Specialist, Gaming will be accountable to achieve the following objectives:
Strategy Development and Implementation

• Support and contribute to the development of the Gaming strategy in line with the overarching business goals

Governance

• Review Meetings
• Participate and provide input in review meetings
• Perform evaluation baseline of key performance indicators (KPIs)
• Request for relevant budget for internal projects and new initiatives
• Facilitate preparation of documentation on change initiatives, policies and procedures

Escalations

• Escalate issues that will result in severe time, scope, productivity, and cost or resource or reputational impact
• Manage and provide solutions to escalations that have multiple processes / functions impact on critical path of service delivery
• Manage and provide solutions through stakeholder consultation where relevant

Function Tactical

• Review all projects initiated (internal or global)
• Prepare objectives, targets and review performance for Gaming Services and Partners as applicable
• Review key risks, issues and dependencies and set mitigation actions
• Support in making decisions regarding tactical changes

Performance

• Monitor performance and alignment of Gaming Team and KPI’s
• Ensure alignment across other functions within the Group Gaming team

Reporting

• Report on a periodic basis to the Reporting Manager relating to progress made within the function and in accordance with the measurement metrics set by the organisation
• Report on an ad hoc basis on specific projects, as required

Budgets

• Manage functional budgets in line with overall business objectives
• Manage project initiative budgets in line with business objectives
• Ensure that the cost of operations are reduced, in line with a least cost operating strategy stemming from the business drivers

Operational Delivery

Strategy & Planning

• Align Gaming objectives for the relevant stakeholders with overall strategy of the Gaming Service and Direct Marketing function and with International trends
• Work with internal business stakeholders and the broader Consumer team in the and execution of existing and new Gaming products & services
• Collaborate with respective Digital Product Managers and counterparts with Partners and Group
• Drive best practice, continuous improvement and innovation at process and procedure level for Gaming
• Analyse new Gaming related technology trends and innovations
• Find innovative new Gaming initiatives and capitalise on opportunities
• Ensure that MTN maintains a position as a world class leader in Gaming products and services
• Execute and manage the Gaming innovation strategy, roadmap and product portfolio mix, in alignment to the MTN SA and Group strategy and roadmap.
• Benchmark best practises in the digital Gaming environment

Content Management

• Drive the day-to-day tasks of the Gaming portfolio by ensuring Gaming partners are sourced and launched on the service delivery platform through relevant channels.
• Drive Gaming content curation to ensure all Gaming content is collected, organised and displayed appropriately on the service delivery platform
• Ensure thorough research is done on various platforms in order to source the optimal Gaming content
• Ensure the right content is sourced for the right target audience
• Drive Gaming content aggregation
• Manage the Gaming applications and ensure that Gaming content is displayed in such a way on the service delivery platform that it is easily accessed by customers
• Management of the content calendar that covers all Gaming related touch points
• Ensure content owners and partners are worked with to ensure that Gaming content is frequently refreshed and always relevant and up to date
• Ensure collaboration with Online Digital Channels team to ensure alignment and synergy of content across Gaming touch points
• Engage with Group Senior Specialist for Gaming to collaborate on Gaming related content for both Global and Local Gaming content.
• Engage with Group Gaming Senior Specialist for Gaming to receive global Gaming-related insights, new products and gain Group insights with respect to Gaming and associated partnerships and alliances

Process and Procedure Effectiveness

• Monitoring of the execution of Gaming content management processes and procedures for MTN operations
• Implementation of all Gaming content management processes and procedures and ensure they are aligned to the set operational framework for MTN SA and Group
• Ensure improvement of existing processes and procedures to enhance effectiveness, efficiency and performance

Quality Management

• Ensure the establishment of systems and sound practices in order to comply with best practices, legislation or other regulations and guidelines around Gaming
• Establishment and maintenance of Gaming quality/process standards that will enhance the customer experience and cost efficiency
• Manage the Gaming content hierarchy, usability, and users’ requirements and needs
• Ensure standard operating procedures are adhered to
• Communicate the consequences of not maintaining Gaming quality/process focus
• Improvement of the Gaming channel processes and procedures where the quality of work may be improved

Customer Satisfaction

• Ensure alignment of service delivery to changing needs of the business and markets
• Ensure customer needs are understood and develop and fine-tune initiatives accordingly
• Ensure customer needs and requirements are satisfied through the appropriate systems, processes and procedures
• Initiate change to continually improve all aspects of service delivery
• Drive continuous improvement as an important element of service delivery
• Ensure trends and patterns pertaining to customer requests and needs are identified to continually improve all aspects of service delivery

Supervisory / Leadership/ Managerial Complexity

• Build and enforce a customer-centric approach
• Build professionalism, loyalty and commitment to the organization
• Communicate actively and effectively resolving any potential conflicts that may arise
• Live the MTN Brand – changing and influencing employee behaviour

Job Requirements (Education, Experience and Competencies)

Education:

• Minimum of 3-year tertiary degree (Bachelor in a related field)

Experience:

• Track record of 5 years or more; with at least 3 years’ experience in telecommunications, Gaming content, digital product management, customer journey management
• Experience in Gaming product category will be advantageous
• Hands on experience in managing and implementing digital products and initiatives
• Deep understanding of the mobile Gaming ecosystem, players, business models and industry related best practices.
• Understanding SA Content market advantageous
• Entrepreneurial spirit, self-driven and ability to motivate a fast-paced team
• Attitude of innovation, inventiveness and thought leadership
• Abreast of global mind-set and best practice
• English speaker. Other official languages a plus

Competencies:

• Functional Knowledge:
• Value Added Services
• Digital content, media and/or applications
• Gaming Product and Content Management
• Digital marketing

Skills

• Business Acumen
• Analytics and Interpretation
• Strategic Thinking
• Organizational Agility
• Digital mind-set
• Dealing with ambiguity and complexity
• Decision Making
• Conflict Management
• Negotiation
• Financial and Numerical
• Project Management