Director, NOC
IHS Towers
Total years of experience :22 years, 3 Months
- Reporting to the CTO, responsible for the entire Telecom Towers’ network monitoring and performance in Kuwait providing services to different telecom service providers.
- Acting as a consultant to IHS leadership team to identify and develop innovative solutions and new business opportunities.
- Provide expert technical support to CEO/CTO/KAM/Procurement/Legal in different areas like Network operations, processes design, SLAs/KPIs governance, contracts understanding & negotiations, RFPs and RFQs preparation and data collection, solutions and suppliers evaluation.
- Part of the technical pre-sales team responsible for the negotiations with other possible towers tenants in Kuwait.
- Chairing the governance committee with the customers to discuss and agree on solutions that will optimize service delivery, foster efficiency, and enhance Network KPIs.
- Leading a team of 12 engineers within NOC providing 24/7 NOC services and reports to support towers tenants and telecom service providers in Kuwait.
- Building IHS NOC in Kuwait from scratch, including NOC HW dimensioning, monitoring tools setup, processes and work flows designs.
- Conduct regular workshops and lead discussions with customers and subcontractors for different technical and non-technical issues.
- Develop and sustain knowledge transfer program within NOC team and establish career development plans.
- Govern all NOC processes and procedures, like Incident Management, Crisis Management, Change Management, Problem Management, Faults/SLAs/KPIs monitoring and reporting, TT handling… etc and ensure that they are implemented without violations.
- Managing and leading NOC Teams of different Network domains (Mobile/Fixed Access, Mobile/Fixed Core, IP & Transport Networks) as well as Incident Management Teams, ensuring that alarm surveillance, troubleshooting and service restoration are all done within Etisalat SLAs/OLAs for all Mobile, Fixed, and IPTV Nodes.
- Take the lead in Critical/Crisis/Disaster Network Incidents, communicate and coordinate between different operations teams as well as escalating whenever necessary to Directors/VPs/SVPs/CTO/CXOs/CEO as per the agreed escalation matrix to restore services within SLAs/OLAs, minimizing business impact.
- Monitoring TTs lifecycle performance, this includes ensuring timely creation of TTs, and ensuring proper escalations and proper closure with RCA.
- Govern all NOC processes, like Incident Management, Crisis Management, Change Management… etc and ensure that they are implemented without violations.
- Escalating and following up VIP/VVIP and business critical cases to related stakeholders’ management and senior management.
- Preparing Problem Management reports to prevent repeated Network failures by applying proactive measures and preventive actions.
- Attending NOC internal and external meetings and being main interface of NOC with others teams within Etisalat (Business Continuity Teams, Contact Center, … etc).
- Preparing daily, weekly, and monthly department reports.
- Shift management, staff scheduling and attendance.
- Managing and leading NOC Team, ensuring proper alarm surveillance and 1st level troubleshooting by FO Team and 2nd level troubleshooting by BO Team for all Ericsson nodes (2G/3G/4G RAN, TRM, MPBN, Core, Packet Core, IN and Charging).
- Technical customer interface, attending Operations & C-Level meetings.
- Leading Change Management, controlling all Network changes, validating, scheduling, approving all CRs.
- Leading Incident Management, minimizing business impact, providing timely proper updates to all stake holders, and preparing incident reports.
- Project Manager of Ericsson’s MSDP implementation.
- Monitoring TTs/WOs/CRs performance, ensuring timely creation of TTs/WOs/CRs, and proper escalations and closure as per escalation matrix and within contractual SLAs.
- Leading CAB meetings and coordinating daily operational activities with all stake holders.
- Ownership of all NOC processes and procedures, create/update NOC working processes and procedures as required.
- Delivering scheduled NOC reports and provide analysis and recommendations for better Network performance.
- Responsible for NOC budgeting.
- Standardize O&M processes to match e-TOM/ITIL/MSDP standards.
- Responsible for NOC team shift schedules preparation, vacations, recruiting, performance reviews, recognize training and competence development requirements of NOC team.
- Evaluate existing NOC tools and planning for new tools.
- Managing and leading a complex organization of Front Office & Customer Problem Management (CPM) Teams (81 Engineers).
- Ensure proper alarm surveillance and 1st level troubleshooting in a huge multivendor Network of more than 10, 000 nodes (including RAN, Core, PaCo, IN, IP, VAS, TRM, IT).
- Ensure timely response of CPM team interfacing with Customer Care Helpdesk, Technical Back Office, and Revenue Assurance to solve customer complains.
- Monitor TTs/WOs performance, ensuring timely creation of TTs/WOs, and ensuring proper escalations and closure as per escalation matrix and within contractual SLAs.
- Prepare NOC reports and provide analysis and recommendations for better Network performance.
- Coordinate daily operational activities with all stake holders, establish working plans, and participate in emergency and crisis response plan establishment.
- Ownership of all FO processes and procedures.
- Evaluate existing NOC tools and planning for new tools.
- Responsible for FO team shift schedules preparation, vacations, recruiting, performance reviews, recognize training and competence development requirements.
- Coordinating knowledge transfer between Front Office, Back Office and Field Maintenance.
- Project Manager of Ericsson’s MSDP implementation.
- Project Manager of NOC refurbishment project.
- Provide services and solutions development support for Zain OpCos in the region focusing on Zain Iraq.
- Provide products & services analysis for competitors to ensure competitive advantage.
- Involved in commercial and technical presentations to promote new services and products.
- Support in new business development & business case evaluation.
- Support the implementation of Zain Iraq swap project (from NSN & Motorola to Ericsson).
- Perform Network configuration audits and suggest configuration changes to provide better services and solutions.
On April 30th 2011, NSN has closed the deal of Acquiring the Networks Business from Motorola Solutions, I performed the same SoW of Configuration Management Team Leader with Motorola Solutions mentioned below.
- Coordinate and follow up with Program Managers and Territory Business Unit Manager to identify and asses new opportunities and risks with Zain OpCos.
- Participates in solution development based on market analysis & trends, competitors analysis and customers’ requirements analysis.
- Participated in developing go-to-market plans and material.
- Analyze competitors’ services, solutions and products to have better positions in terms of solution development and business pricing.
- Maintaining new opportunities P&Ls & dashboards.
- Leading configuration team to implement various Network configuration changes for Zain Iraq Network on Cells, Sites, BSCs, RXCRDs, PCUs, A-interfaces.
- Planning Network topology for RXCDRs, BSCs, PCUs & BTSs.
- Implementing and testing new software loads, software upgrades, as well as new feature.
- Unix & VBA scripting to create tools which helps implementing huge Network level configuration changes.
- Planning, coordinating, supervising and following up the different projects along with operator and other vendors.
- Performing sanity checks on Network configurations and implementing corrective changes when necessary.
- Providing On-Job Training (OJT) for team members.
- Reviewing and improving operational processes and procedures.
- Preparing various Network configuration reports.
- Supported other regional projects within Zain OpCos, such as, Phase 0 of MTC Saudi Rollout and 1.2M sub expansion project of MTC-Touch.
- Implementing various Network configuration changes on Cell, Site, BSC, RXCRD, PCU, A-interface levels.
- Planning, coordinating and supervising implementation of Network level configuration changes.
- Leading configuration team (shift schedule, tasks distribution, conflicts management, … etc).
- Preparing DB object codes and scripts for software upgrades, new frequency plans and all other types of configurations changes.
- Unix scripting to create tools which helps implementing huge Network level configuration changes.
- Prepare Network configuration related reports.
- Handling maintenance requests from NOC team.
- Responsible for corrective maintenance of various transducers (pressure, temperature, flow …etc) on the product lines.
- Planning preventive maintenance schedules, organizing work and splitting technicians into appropriate teams to reduce production outage time.