Specialist - Value Added Services Systems Technology Information at MTN

The VAS domain covers the following systems : SMS, SMS Firewall, Message Interworking Router(MIR), USSD, Callback, MMSC,  Advertising systems, VAS-HLR(Consolidated source of subscriber information),  DMC(Device Management System), DB4(quadruplet database of MSISDN, IMEI, IMSI, IP), EIR, SIFT(Subscriber Information For Third Parties), VAS-HLR(Value-Added Services Home Location Register), Omni-Channel Engagement Platform(OCEP),  IVR systems and applications, Voicemail, DP/WIG( SIM and Device OTA Management Platform), Crypto System( Used for SIM Key generation), Prepaid SIM activation system SIM Application Management,    Call Centre telephony system,  Voice Recordings, Work Force Management(Scheduling of agents  and monitoring of agent activities)

• The role is influenced by MTN marketing & various Business unit demands and roadmaps. 
• It is also affected by global telecommunications and IT technology evolutions, trends & influences and the requirement to remain leaders in the GSM field
• Impacted by MTN Group directives
• The IS area has to deal with the rapid advancement of systems and technology within the following areas
  • OSS (Operational support systems) and BSS (Business support systems) layers
  • Various Network platforms enabling many Billing, VAS and ISP network functions
• Deal with and environment that is highly regulated and legislated
• Deal with the consequences of operating in highly specialised environment where there is often a dire skills shortage
• IT environments with the Telecommunication industry do not tolerate the stoppages, breakdowns and low level of service
• Vendors/suppliers are inconsistent and have different methods of working which makes applying consistent rules of engagement a challenge
• Technical support and escalation often need to be ‘out of the country’ – with time lags for resolving critical issues
• When major issues/incidents arise on systems one will need to assist Operations in a “hands-on” fashion
• Ensure that vendors (whether they do development or system configuration) are correctly driven and that in-house business and resultant functional logic is maintained within MTN through the supply of fully fledged and detailed specifications and ensure that vendors are driven to fulfil these 
• Ensure that systems can deal with high transactional volumes wherein many environment also require low latency in order to properly fulfil real-time subscriber interaction requirements

Governance

• Follow all corporate governance procedures in place
• Ensure that changes to the current environment are properly documented and tested before promoting into production. Post production changes should be documented and managed.
• Support the prioritisation process to drive prioritisation of requirements and initiatives in functional areas to ensure timeous delivery of requirements
• Support Revenue Assurance functions to understand issues and resolve any revenue issues or leakage
• Create visibility of changes to core systems, data and products by informing the organisation of changes
• Support assessment of Portfolio maturity on an annual basis
• Influence and implement aspects of data security policies
• Support the creation of critical Policies, Processes or Procedure such that Business risk is managed which also ensures that any ISO certifications can be maintained and ensure that they are being utilised in day to day operations

Tactical Planning and Operations

• Continually assess new VAS technologies in the market from existing  vendors,  Group approved vendors and new emerging vendors  to optimize existing solutions, reduce HW footprint, reduce CAPEX and OPEX etc 
• Future proof systems based on new and evolving standards and technologies
• Provide system consultation for all applications related projects so that decisions can be made as to the most appropriate delivery methodology
• Carry out proof of concept environments to demonstrate the viability of new technologies and assist with requirements definitions
• Ensure delivery of (authorised) projects according to the prioritised project list
• Ensure the one performs the necessary analysis, design, modelling and documentation tasks necessary to pass MTN IS governance forums
• Ensure that vendors (whether they do development or system configuration) are correctly driven and that in-house business and resultant functional logic is maintained within MTN through the supply of fully fledged and detailed specifications and ensure that vendors are driven to fulfil these and supply a an end result that meets any IS quality standards
• Ensure professional system documentation is up to date at all times
• Ensure that any common business rules, metrics and measures set in IS are followed
• Provide input into the design of technology solution architectures with a 2 to 5 year horizon. Focus for both converging IT, Telco technologies and future ICT requirements
• Engage with other operations to extract potential benefits and efficiencies achieved at a technical implementation and/or process layer
• Assist in the evaluation of new technologies and products to determine feasibility and desirability of incorporating their capabilities into the Company’s IS systems

Internal Processes Full system co-ownership

• Planning and Operational areas need to function as a cohesive unit
• Working relationships with Operational area must include:
  • Discussing status of projects
  • Discussing new projects on the horizon
  • Discussing system issues that may or may not require planning analysis
  • Ensuring that Operations is involved in a project every step of the way, such that they can prepare for ATP work and any roll-out activities
  • Provide Operations the opportunity to provide ideas on system evolution from the perspective of maintaining platforms on a day to day basis
  • Perform ATPs with Operations and vendors
  • Help test system functioning through the application of custom scripts

Common area for capturing and updating of Project Info

• Make sure that updates to project information is done in a centralised manner such that the following is always up to date:
  • Scope Summaries
  • Project Status
  • Risks and Issues
  • Fully unpacked Scope and Taxonomy
  • Costs
  • Project Chronology

Delivery of Internal Business as Usual Projects

• Continually identify the following in your area
  • Capacity Upgrades that are required due to Network Traffic
  • Software Upgrades required to ensure adherence to maintenance agreements
  • Aspects of a system that have not been performing optimally that require changes to architecture
  • Hardware that is reaching end of life and requires replacement
• These constitute all BAU project work that needs to take place in any given year and need to be executed on time and on budget

Skill Tracking incl Self Learning

• Make sure that you demonstrate effort to develop your own skills which helps with your career by
  • Making sure that you are going on as many courses a year and are reviewing your development with Line Management
  • Making use of any CBT training that the Company offers
• Demonstrate self-motivation such new skills are gained "on the job" which don't always require course work. This demonstrates self-learning ability
• Keep track of:
  • Courses you have done
  • Development you believe you need
  • Skills have been self-taught
  • Extra studies of professional bodies
• Using what you keep track of and also rate yourself and further knowledge you believe you need to gain
  • This enables Line Management to better guide developmental needs through a more complete perspective of skills and needs

System Ownership

• One is allocated a set of systems for which you have the primary responsibility and a set of systems for you have a secondary responsibility
• Although a lot of project focus would be on primary systems one is required to do project work on secondary systems to ensure balance and continuity
• Any system within the Service Delivery space can be allocated and one will be expected to take up many new challenges

Information Management

• Work with Line Management to ensure that all documentation, scripts and project information in stored in a central fashion and is easily accessible to the team
• Ensure that methods for applying versions are logical and consistently followed

Core Planning Functions Living System Logical Architecture Documentation

• Each system required documentation used to convey the full logical architecture of a system with all use cases and functional logic within
• This must be the first port of call when wanting to convey a new requirement or a change to the vendor
• With these documents, the creation of an FRS (Functional Requirements Specification) is quick as the full functioning is already mapped out avoiding any need to reverse engineer
• The success of this document is determined by whether an alternative vendor could use it to reproduce a systems functioning with least 95% level of accuracy
• Make sure these are updated at the completion of every project

Living System Snapshot, Roadmap and Project History Documentation

• Each system requires a document that is updated on a quarterly basis which must cover
  • The capacity of the system (licenses and hardware)
  • The current and historical utilisation of the system (traffic)
  • Functional overview of the system
  • History on projects which incurred changes to the system
  • A Roadmap including:
    • Business as usual projects (BAU)
    • Proposals to Business

Requirement Analysis and the supply of Functional Specifications to vendors

• One needs to play active role in requirements analysis. This means providing comprehensive input on:
  • Business Requirement Definitions
  • Marketing Plans
  • Marketing Road-maps
  • Marketing Strategy
  • Core Network Strategy
  • BAU requirements as identified for each system
  • End to End Solution Architecture Requirements
• And from any final set of requirements a Functional Requirement must be created which serves to:
  • Impart an understanding of the problem space
  • Provide the business and product objectives of the project
  • Give an understanding of where the product and target system are in the context of fulfilling the business objectives
  • Provide detailed and specific instruction to the reader in terms of what the target system or component thereof is required to achieve
  • Provide an understanding of the environmental and business constraints in achieving a solution to the requirements
  • Provide documentation creation and update requirements for the project

Capacity planning for special events or increasing traffic volumes

• Planning of a systems footprint, licensing and utilisation must take place. This includes:
  • Software Upgrades on platforms
  • Hardware replacements or forklifts
  • New hardware
  • Licensing upgrades
• This also includes providing details on topology changes, managing site preparation and working with other areas on Core and IP network integration and design

Innovation and Proof of Concept work

• In any environment one is required to demonstrate possibilities to Business. This usually takes place through what is known as a Proof of Concept (PoC) and can be in one of two forms:
  • Those where a full functional requirement is created for a vendor to provide all aspects to the PoC
  • Using ones multi-skilling in order to demonstrate features which often requires the need to write scripts and/or small ad-hoc applications in order to perform such a demonstrations quickly and therefore at the lowest cost

System Reporting and E2E testing

• There has to be a focus on Systems relating to driving
  • Subscriber Experience testing
  • System utilisation reporting
• This requires:
  • Deep system knowledge
  • Database and report writing skills
  • Scripting and general development/coding skills

Incident and Event Reporting

• Each year there is at least 1 event (Festive Season) that needs to be planned for and constitutes:
  • A Capacity and mitigation plan prior to the event
  • A Post event report on the traffic experienced and any learnings from issues that arose during the event
• Each year any system would have a few major incidents that would happen and Operational areas require assistance on assembling these

Financial Vendor Relations, Leverage and Quarterly reporting

• Meet with vendors as least twice a year
• Convey problem areas to vendors and request action plans
• Ensure that vendors supply quarterly reports on system health and utilisation and anything else as per contract
• Ensure that assistance is provided to obtain maximum value for minimum cost from vendors

Budget assistance and tracking

• The Living System Blueprint, Topology, Utilisation, Roadmap and Project History" for each system is to contain a roadmap of projects requiring funding
• Spend must be kept which includes tracking of the following:
  • Breakdown of spend (tangible and intangible software, licenses and hardware)
  • Project numbers
  • Requisition numbers
  • PO numbers
  • Invoice numbers
• All funding must be capitalised within the targets set by MTN

Assistance with Yearly CAPEX Plans and tracking spend through the year

• Ensure that team members are working together to ensure that spend is kept track of, including:
  • Breakdown of spend (tangible and intangible software, licenses and hardware)
  • Project numbers
  • Requisition numbers
  • PO numbers
  • Invoice numbers
• Must work with Line Management to:
  • Tally up all spend and budget positions on a regular basis
  • Extract all Roadmap-items from team members and supply full budget requirement breakdowns each year
  • Ensure that capitalisation targets are achieved

Assistance with contract negotiations and driving to conclusion

• Update a central location with information on what the vendor supplies
• Update a central location with any particular contract issues that need to be addressed at renewal stage (or with T&C changes and brand new contracts)
• Drive any internal commercial or procurement area to conclude negotiations between the vendor and legal teams and be available for consulting where required
• Ensure proper fixed pricing is in place and that MTN IPR is protected

Customer Delivery of Business projects

• The primary objectives is to deliver on requirements set by the business and make sure that changes needed on platforms owned take place on time and within budget
• In addition all changes must be of a high quality such that bugs are kept to a minimum to ensure smooth testing cycles

System/Project hand-overs to Operational areas

• Ensure that all systems (or set of systems) are properly documented for Operations by the vendor
  • Documents include:  Installation & Operations Guides, 3rd Party Interface Control Documents as well as  ATPs (Acceptance Test Procedures)
• Supply Living System Logical Architecture and Living System Snapshot, Roadmap and Project History Documentation created from planning activities
• Work with Operations to perform the ATP together with the vendor
  • Assist with any automation of ATP procedures by writing scripts
• Assist with any script writing to put in place End to End test procedures
• Ensure that System utilisation reports are in place

Technical Landscape and Business Proposals

• Present the following to Business as regularly as possible:
  • Underutilized capabilities of Systems
  • Product ideas against these capabilities
  • Future Technical Landscape and how it may influence future products

Education:

• Degree or Diploma in Information Systems or Electrical Engineering (BSc Elec Eng, BSc IT, Bcom IT, Diploma IT)

Experience:

• At least 4+ years’ experience in the IT/Telecoms industry and specifically the application of Information Technology within the telco space of which at least 2 years should be applicable experience at an internationally recognized operator. The Senior Systems Engineer must be widely read and know about many facets of Telecoms including open-source projects and I.T. technologies in general
• Project management and business optimisation experience would be advantageous
• Exposure to managing external vendor/supplier relationships and service level agreements
• The following experience is a must for this position
  • A background in System Architecture & Design which includes the creation of highly detailed functional requirements which describe deep functional logic of a system
  • A background in database administration
  • A background in Unix/Linux OS systems administration
  • A background in Hardware and Storage administration

Some solid background in programming (e.g. Java, Python, Perl, PHP, C/C++, C#, VB.Net, Erlang etc) is mandatory

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Internal Suppliers:
  • Network Group
  • Finance and the Internal IS Commercial team
  • Enterprise Services
  • Infrastructure Services
• Key suppliers: 
  • These vary from time to time, but any point approx the output of 1-3 suppliers need to be managed
• Reporting to:
  • Line Manager and Senior Manager of the team into which one Reports
  • General Manager: Service Delivery
• Matrix reports:
  • Specialists: These Engineers, when called upon to do so by Line Management will assume a design authority role or will be required to lead a project and thereby direct work
• Key customers:
  • All MTN SA Business Units(CBU, EBU, CEX, MNS, Legal & Regulatory etc)
  • Product areas within MTN
  • Sales and Customer Services
  • MTN Group Marketing and Technology areas

QUALIFICATIONS

Supervisory / Leadership / Managerial Complexity

• In all matters and decisions to seek consensus with, and contributions from, as wide a group of stakeholders as possible
• Ensure that Customer and project issues are identified timeously, documented, resolved and communicated
• Monitor vendor performance and hold regular meetings to go through all issues. Healthy vendor relationships must be maintained at all times
• Knowledge sharing with other team members
• Knowledge sharing is key to the success of the CIO team and helps with the growth of all individuals and must take place at all times
• Knowledge hoarding of any kind is discouraged and one must strive to openly share knowledge in a centralised and easily accessible fashion
• One must constantly engaging fellow team members in whiteboard sessions (not only in the confines of a project but to hand over any interesting knowledge that has been gained)
• Liaise Core Network and IP Planning (CTO) so that they are aware of projects and new systems being deployed and log projects with them where required
• Collate budgetary input in an area thereby assisting Line Management to track requirements and spend on systems
• Assist with negotiation of domain related contractual agreements with vendors
• Liaise with Billing and RA areas to keep them updated as to billing record formats and traffic cases
• Driving the capture and updating of Project Info and Priorities:
  • Must work with Line Management to list and prioritise projects and make sure
  • Must make sure that updates to project information is done in a centralised manner such that the following is always up to date:
    • Scope Summaries
    • Project Status
    • Risks and Issues
    • Fully unpacked Scope and Taxonomy
    • Costs
    • Project Chronology
  • This means:
    • Constantly working with team members to facilitate discussions on prioritisation with Line Management
    • Playing a mentor-ship role to guide priorities in the team
    • Motivating team members such that quality updates on project information and status is always done (including reviewing and commenting on these updates)
• Key Customer Relationship Management:
  • The Business always needs help to understand system capabilities and how these can help drive their various initiatives and product Road-maps
  • One needs to freely offer up this type of knowledge day to day interactions with Business
  • This must be done by:
    • Making sure that a up to date Living System Snapshot, Roadmap & Project History documentation exists that can made available at any time
    • Offer up alternative options based on our system knowledge when reviewing requirements 
    • Holding Stakeholders forums whenever it may be required
• Knowledge Mentoring:
  • One not only needs to:
    • Demonstrate to team members that any document, spreadsheet, diagram or script that someone is working on needs to have a logical place where it can be easily found
    • Work with fellow team members to logically structure this knowledge base and ensure that any HOW-TOs do not remain in e-mails
    • Commit to being multifaceted in ones skill set and continually demonstrate the usefulness thereof
    • Demonstrate a passion around the planning function and always innovate
  • But must also
    • Encourage knowledge sharing and set-up sharing sessions where any hoarding is taking place
    • Look after central knowledge stores within system domains
    • Actively pass on knowledge that has been gained
    • Must motivate others and strive for a deep understanding Service Delivery platforms and pass on knowledge
• Service Delivery Culture improvement:
  • One is on the road to becoming a leader and needs to act in the best interests of the entire Service Delivery team as well as the greater CIO function and MTN by and large. This means:
    • Keeping people positive such that team members view issues as challenges which is an opportunity to learn and grow
    • Continually act to work through any negativity and maintain a healthy up-beat work environment by giving team members pep/motivational talks during day to day working life
    • Must ensure that one lives the CIO team brand and execute all aspects of the function at all times

Role Complexity

• This role constantly requires the incumbent to perform duties that are outside the "traditional" Technical role.
• Additional complexity is required from this role that is not usually inherent in such a position.
• In order to be an effective planner one must have a good mix of skills relating to basic scripting, SQL, Databases (and Report writing), IP, Hardware skills and various other ICT skills and should be actively using this skill set on a daily basis

Creativities (improvement/innovation inherent)

• Analyse information obtained and disseminate to relevant areas of the business in a value-adding way.
• Continuously review system performance and recommend creative ways to enhance performance
• Explore creative and innovative ways to make changes to meeting an ever adapting business in order to increase efficiency and effectiveness of the organisation
• Recommend new, innovative solutions to enhance MTN performance
• Encourage team members to take initiative, and implement an ideas or processes that will improve the MTN Business and understand that:
  • Unlimited access to technologies allows great growth and is only limited by knowledge saturation levels.
  • Complacency with one’s knowledge will seriously hinder growth and must be avoided
  • One is empowered to drive and implement new ideas and philosophies
• One is empowered to drive and implement new ideas and processes with Line Management

Vulnerabilities (control span)

• Due to the interdependence on other areas of the business and stakeholders – deadlines may be missed if bottlenecks are not identified timeously / delays occur
• Lack of support and buy in from stakeholders and/ or poor stakeholder management
• Lack of resources and expertise to perform the work
• Existing Legacy or sub-optimal systems and data frameworks
• Changing priorities in the business and conflicting priorities in different areas of the business
• Speed of technology evolution
• Changes in regulatory and statutory environments
• Reliance on proper testing environments that are full duplications of live environments (complexity and cost)
• In addition there must be an understanding that:
  • While direct input is obtained from various Business Units, change is constant which requires resilience from all members of the Service Delivery Team so as not to allow this to adversely affect one's desire to exceed the norms.
  • One will constantly be faced with situations that are outside any comfort zones and that all team members are required to adapt to a constantly changing technological environment
• When change is dictated by altering Business requirements one must be willing to put in the extra hours from time to time in order to get projects done

One has to initiate change if dictated by changing Business requirements and one must be willing to put in the extra hours from time to time in order to get projects done

Skills/Physical Competencies

• Process modelling, technical documentation skills
• Analytical and problem solving skills.
• Project planning skills.
• Communication and interpersonal skills.
• Facilitation and Multitasking skills.
• Customer centric
• Presentation and writing skill
• Contract administration skills
• Leadership skills
• The ability to document and support strategy focused solutions that will add value to customers businesses
• Conflict and Stress resolution skills

Behavioural qualities

• Self-motivated
• Display integrity and simplicity of values
• Innovative
• Action-oriented
• Customer centric
• Attention to detail
• Sticking to deadlines
• Accurate and timeous reporting
• Professional ethics
• Demonstrates Initiative
• Perseverance - Copes with pressures and setbacks
• Networking abilities
• Team player
• Ability to adapt to changing requirements of clients
• Good Interpersonal Skills
• Passion for IT and Technology
• Living the brand
• Must demonstrate a passion around the planning function in face of CIO customers and and always demonstrate and innovate attitude
• Must ensure that one lives the CIO team brand and execute all aspects of the function at all times
• Must motivate others
• Assertive
• Decisive
• Ability to work closely with other team leaders, project leaders, project managers and managers
• Shows passion in giving the teams Architectural Guidance on Systems and Services
• Demonstrate flexible thought application
• Has a reputation for integrity and displays a high degree of solution intellectual capacity
• Agnostic towards technology/application vendor and product choices - focus on results rather than personal choices
• Has future vision