MVNO business is becoming increasingly digital. However, digitalising your business and shifting your model to a new way of working is easier said than done. This panel discussion focused on helping MVNOs in Africa capitalise on this growing trend.
This fascinating panel discussion was moderated by Wesley Hellyar, Chief Executive Officer, Moth Innovate, and featured Ayesha Rashid, Vice President and General Manager, EMEA, Circles, Blue Hadlow, Product Line Head, Capitec Connect, Amit Agarwal, CEO & Founder, Zetexa Global, and Jacques Du Toit, CEO, Vox Telecom.
What’s the most important thing to understand about digitalising an MVNO?
The panel made it clear that digitalising an MVNO business cannot be approached like you’re putting a digital veneer on top of an existing model.
One panelist shared an excellent quote, saying, “You can’t build the future on the past.”
The legacy foundations simply aren’t designed for the new things you’re building on top. It will be too slow and it will be too complex.
To create a seamless digital journey, the model from the ground up needs to be truly digital-native.
What does that digital-native approach look like, exactly?
The panel pointed to a great example of this in practice, which is Onik in Pakistan. In 2023, Onik launched Pakistan’s first truly digital telco, and we solved many customer pain points in doing so.
The key here is that their strategy wasn’t just about the connectivity. It was about evolving from fragmented physical processes to 100% digital acquisition via performance marketing and digital onboarding. It was also about moving on from selling basic top-ups, like the minutes and the megabytes, to actually building a thriving integrated marketplace.
This has provided people in rural areas the chance to be included in things they were previously unable to get, thanks to partnerships with apps for ride hailing, food delivery, financial services, and so on.
And the business is thriving thanks to this digital-first strategy. In Pakistan, Onik has one of the highest product innovation NPS of all digital brands in the country, and a significant percentage of their ARPU comes from non-telco revenues. OpEx is low, and time-to-market for new products is literally one day.
It works in Pakistan, so it can work in Africa. But it requires the right approach from the very
Rethinking the role of the MVNO in the value chain
One speaker touched on the idea that “end-to-end” is something many MVNOs misunderstand or have forgotten the real meaning of.
You need to rethink the role of an MVNO in the customer’s perspective, and how that fits into their ultimate goal or true destination of an end-to-end digital journey.
“I think MVNOs tend to see themselves as the product that everyone’s looking for,” said one speaker.
“But are we in the way, possibly? I don’t think we’re the value proposition in itself. We are perhaps more of a utility in the value chain at times, or somewhat of a means to an end.”
Modern consumers are trying to access services, communication channels, and other online products. The MVNO provides the connectivity that enables that, but the MVNO is not the real product people are interested in.
“A typical consumer doesn’t wake up with a burning desire to buy 10GB of data,” the speaker added. “Once you understand that, you get a much clearer view of how your strategy should be tailored to serving customers with what they really want.”
Ask what your customers are really trying to do with your connectivity. That’s how you should be mapping out your place in the modern digital journey.
While this frames the MVNO as a “utility” or a “means to an end,” it’s critical to distinguish this from the “mini-telco” trap. To survive, an MVNO’s value proposition must differentiate from the host telco. Simply acting as a smaller, cheaper version of a carrier (a mini-telco) offers no long-term moat. The “real product” isn’t just connectivity, it is the specialised ecosystem built on banking, content, affinity rewards, and so on, which the connectivity enables.
How can partnerships help with digitalisation?
Partnerships are crucial in this area if your business doesn’t have its own existing data sets.
The panel raised an example of a student-focused travel MVNO that may be launched in the US and Canada in the coming months. Preparation for this launch would have started almost a year in advance, and so the company can leverage partnerships like:
- Companies in the Forex space
- Companies in the visa space
- Student accommodation providers.
Not only can these partnerships help reach those customers, but they can also provide data that helps tailor and personalise the services and products on offer from the MVNO.
Staying with that example, the MVNO could run joint-marketing with an insurance company providing travel insurance for students, or giving a student plan to hotels or airlines.
Of course, the panelists pointed to the fact that there are many brands who are trying to reach their customers digitally in all sectors, who you can work with to attract new audiences and share the customer acquisition costs with you.
This helps bring other value added services and products into your MVNO offering as well, which is becoming increasingly important.
MVNOs can also partner with bespoke MVNO-related SaaS tools, such as a “behavioural MVNO” CVM solutions and other intelligent services.
How to master personalisation in the modern digital MVNO
Building on that previous point, another speaker noted that hyper-personalisation is crucial today.
They said, “You need to provide the right product, to the right customer, via the right channel, with precisely the right timing.”
So, how do you do that?
The panelists suggested there are three fundamentals to achieving this:
1 – A single source of truth
For instance, a unified data lake, where data is gathered from every single customer touch point.
2 – A way to turn that data into insight
Using segmentation models to understand your customers better, define their behaviour, and minimise churn.
3 – Executing on that insight
This is where most legacy systems fail, because you have to test and learn so fast in execution.
“Test and learn” should be an obsession, according to one speaker.
“In order to do this well, at the required speed, you need an integrated tech stack. It’s not possible if you have to reach out to dozens of vendors for change requests.”
MVNOs need the autonomy and agility to tailor products, services, and promotions literally within one day. That’s only possible for truly digital businesses.
Is a fully digital MVNO business applicable in Africa?
Connectivity
The panelists reminded the audience that South Africa is not the same as Africa. There are entirely different challenges and considerations across the continent.
One shared MVNOs face across most of Africa is load shedding and power problems as a key issue.
Unfortunately, those problems are a big inhibitor of connectivity. If an MVNO can solve the power problem, as we’ll see in later chapters, they will succeed.
A key way to look at this is aligned with the point made earlier about the position of MVNOs in the real value chain.
“Connectivity is kind of irrelevant,” said one speaker. “That is then an enabler for services that are actually needed such as education, healthcare, financial services, communication, and so on.”
Affordability and availability
Another speaker built on this point to look at some of the demographic issues in Africa that could be helped by more affordable digital MVNO services.
It’s imperative for the people of Africa to get connected and gain access to this kind of capability through accessible technology.
One speaker said, “I think the challenges of the digital divide and the data affordability can be helped by MVNOs. In more developed regions, it’s about convenience. In Africa, it’s more about something much more fundamental, which is access.”
“For example, many women across the continent would look for the opportunity to have a private and affordable digital connection, because that for them becomes a lifeline. Then they’re not excluded from things anymore.”
This can help with education, financial literacy and independence, health and safety, and many other important aspects of life in Africa.
“The key thing here is that it shouldn’t be a copy paste,” added one speaker. “Whatever the technology transformation is, it needs to be uplifting culturally, socially, economically.”
Market drivers for digitalisation of MVNOs
The panel seemed to agree that fully digital MVNOs are the future in Africa.
One speaker pointed out the changing landscape of the market as the reasoning for this.
They said, “First, looking at most MVNOs as a start-up, with limited budgets and lots of constraints, like the minimum revenue guarantee being imposed by MNOs, digital is the easiest and most cost-efficient way to scale up.”
“Also, look at what’s happening to mobile prices. Previously eSIMs were only available in high-end mobile phones. But now we have affordable mobile phones where eSIM is available. When the adoption of these phones increases in the market, you’ll see customers no longer walking to the store, so customer activation then becomes digital too.”
“And in terms of marketing, thanks to digital channels like social media, and the low-cost of partnering with influencers and gaining access to existing audiences, customer acquisition is easier when digital too.”
Then if you started. So one point which was mentioned about the you know, what is about the customer loyalty and what benefits you can give to them?
Key take-aways and guidance for MVNOs
If you’re an MVNO considering this digital-first approach, some of the key points of this discussion include:
- Do not build new digital-first businesses on old legacy foundations or strategies
- Shift your thinking regarding where MVNOs sit in the value chain today and don’t try to be a “mini-telco”
- Use strategic partnerships and value added services to reach and retain customers in different niches
- Do not underestimate the importance of data in the digital age
- Aim to provide genuine value to the lives of the people in Africa based on the continent’s unique challenges and needs.
