Mona Lisa Brookshire is truly an Amazon. The indefatigable Chief Marketing Officer of Ugandan Telecoms (UTL) has received several awards in her working career including; a Whirlpool Journey to Excellence MBA Scholarship that allowed her to pursue her MBA degree on full scholarship. She graduated from High School with the highest distinction and attended Spelman College for her undergraduate studies on a Dean’s scholarship that was available to only the top 1% in her class. In this interview with MobileWorld, Brookshire, shares her mind on the growth of telecoms in Africa, innovative technology, UTL growth ratio, market share and expectations in 2010.Excerpts.

 How can you describe the growth of telecom in Africa for a decade now?

 The telecom industry is the most dynamic industry in Sub-Saharan Africa with the financial services industry following as a distant second. The telecom world has several regional giants like MTN, Zain and Orange with other telecoms competing strongly ONLY within one country of operation like Ghana Telecom (Vodafone), Uganda Telecom (Lap Green) and Kenya\\\'s Safaricom. The last decade has seen increased telephony penetration in every single market and every marketer hopes to lead the helm of a telecom giant so as to enjoy the fast-paced, innovative and challenging role of marketing telecom products and services.

 What is your experience like managing the marketing arm of Uganda Telecom?

  My present responsibilities include managing the marketing and product development department at Uganda Telecom Limited (UTL) and I am very excited about dealing with the nuances within the unique Ugandan telecommunications industry.

Previously, I worked in both Atlanta, Georgia and New York and my relevant telecom experience was with Cingular Wireless (now AT & T) which happens to be the largest provider of local, long distance telephone services as well as the second largest provider of wireless service in the United States. Over the years, I also worked in the financial services sector with MBNA America Bank (now Bank of America), as well as in the transportation industry with UPS. After business school, I worked for the technological giant, General Electric, in their energy division as a Six Sigma Black Belt Marketing Manager. However, my strongest marketing experience came from The Coca-Cola Company in Atlanta. I worked at Coke as a Marketing Project Manager - Knowledge & Insights. This was a very demanding, exciting and mind-boggling opportunity that included analyzing and evaluating market research data, various matrices as well as developing and rolling-out ideation marketing plans. I have a Business Degree in Marketing Management and Brand Development (MBA Hons.) .

 What does the future hold for Uganda Telecom?

 I joined UTL in July of last year and this was my first time working in East Africa or Uganda for that matter. There is a huge difference here in the telecom industry in the sense that, most people in the U.S. subscribe to a service on a monthly basis with lower percentages of people on pre-paid services. One is also able to transport their phone number across networks, say for example if mobile company W does not provide the sort of service you need, you can migrate to company X, Y or Z easily. Due to the access of number portability, every company is on their Ps and Qs in providing top class customer service and delivering the right products and services.

 How well has the government help him providing infrastructure.

 In Uganda however, the government has stipulated that you cannot transport your number to another service even if you liked the competitiveness of the products available from other networks; you are always limited by the company’s designated prefix. Secondly, as in most African countries, your phone number almost works like your ID- that is you don’t necessary have a fixed address so your phone number becomes the most important contact information that your network uses to reach you at any given moment. Giving up this number becomes close to impossible even when a customer has a strong preference for another competitor in the mobile market. Hence, if you are a business person and you have your number on your business cards, and you’ve given it out to several customers, it’s a very difficult decision to switch to a competitor just because of their services.

Apart from foraging into financial solution by the introduction of Redknee

What other innovative communication software products, service do you have for your subscribers?

 Actually, UTL has decided not to compete in the mobile telephony business alone because its products and services transcend mobile operations. UTL is truly a total communications solutions provider with strong positions in voice, data and fixed line services. This means we compete in 3 main segments which include landline (the company’s mainstay) as well as voice and data. We want to be known as a conglomerate in terms of our reach in the telecom sector and not just within cellular services. We are pushing all three components as our competitors lay more emphasis on cellular services and I believe that we are far ahead in terms of our expertise. We also want to be recognized as an innovative company and a truly Ugandan organization.

 UTL Total mobile subscribers are currently at around 9 million individuals and UTL controls about 25% of this base (3rd overall in Uganda). This tricky situation makes it hard for operators to change positions because every other company seems to simply hold onto their market share and ranking, making it even more difficult for telecom companies to compete in this market.

 Your company last year acquired high capacity fiber optic connectivity from Seacom has there been any increase in your market share between then and now

  On July 23^rd last year, UTL partnered with SEACOM to offer more bandwidth to our clients at the same price that they are currently paying. We enabled some of our customers to double their capacity from 64kbps to 128 kbps without having to pay more for the increase. Again, we have the first mover’s advantage as an innovator in our industry and we will also be able to allow our customers to enjoy a newly enhanced experience.

 Rural telephony is very important in developing nations. Bringing \'Kasana\' Ugandan\'s first Solar powered mobile phone shows that you have a passion in rural telephony. Are you sure there will be sustainability of this as the innovation is weather enabled

 We recently launched a locally driven product, Kasana – a solar-powered mobile phone and we were the first in the country to produce this phone. The solar phone is quite popular since one does not have to charge their phone using other power sources or travel long distances to pay for charging services. This phone is very versatile given the level of incomes of most people in the rural areas as well as the overall challenge of having to charge the phone if you are a small-scale business owner. It is convenient and provides cost-savings benefits that afford our customers the opportunity to enjoy uninterrupted communication.

  What are your expectations in 2010?

 One operator has been responsible for the price wars but UTL has decided not to respond. Our mission is to have innovative products, make recommendations on what our services are so that customers can get value for money versus the concentration on price. Lowering the price simply gains subscribers momentarily until a promotion ends and then after the promo, they go back to the operator of choice.