Shah Mohammad Ali

I am responsible for the product planning and execution throughout the product lifecycle, including requirements gathering, prioritizing product and fulfil business needs. Working closely with sales, engineering and other units to ensure revenue and customer satisfaction goals are met. Also responsible to ensure that the product supports the company’s overall strategy and goals. Currently working as product development manager, my job profile is as follows,

• Plan and prioritize product feature backlog and development for the product.
• Define road map and growth opportunities.
• Launching a digital payment system that enables multiple payments options for our products & services.
• Launching a subscription management system that manages subscription lifecycle for our product & services.
• Launched mobile apps, web and OTT video services in MENA, such as Jawwy TV (https://www.jawwy.tv/en/
• Drive the day-to-day product management of the Intigral Payment solution & Online Video Platform to ensure product and network requirements are continuously met.
• Coordinate and finalize the requirements with operators to integrate Jawwy TV Home Box solution as B2B2C product proposition.
• Assess value, develop cases, and prioritize stories, epics, and themes to ensure work focuses on those with the maximum value that is aligned with product strategy.
• Manage end-to-end product portfolio, including portfolio revamps or decommissioning of products
• Monitor service performance and manage revenue and profitability in comparison with business case
• Support Pre- sales in the development of technical proposals
• Provide product leadership and work with other stakeholders such as Sales, Retention, Customer Experience, Network, IT, and external partners/Operators.
• Provide backlog management, iteration planning, and elaboration of the user stories
• Work closely with Product Management to create and maintain a product backlog according to business value or ROI.
• Provide an active role in mitigating impediments affecting successful team completion of Release/Sprint Goals.
• Keep abreast with Agile/Scrum best practices and new trends job requirements.
• Providing vision and direction to the Agile development team and stakeholders throughout the project and create requirements
• Managing the product life cycle from strategic planning to tactical execution
• Prioritizing engineering work while balancing the requirements of customers and stakeholders
• Establishing product goals and reviewing success metrics to achieve commercial success.
• Key contributor to the product launch process, in Payment solutions area, from idea to commercial launch including developing use cases, interfacing/integrating with partners/Operators, finalizing business requirements & evaluating product performance.
• Setup the relevant ecosystems of services via partners or internal technology team.
• Responsible for the solution and application design in terms of usability and functionality.
• Manage the relationships with partners in the area of digital solutions.

More than ten years of experience in the VAS/ICT domain in different areas i.e. Implementation, Operation, Project Management, Platform Assurance, Requirements Gathering, Gap Analysis and Recommendations on an identified inadequacy area. As Manager Operations Platforms in Technology division, I am responsible for planning & management of in-house operations and 3rd party platforms. Drafting RFPs/RFQs, evaluating solution proposals, reviewing and approving the Low/High-level solutions, interface designs, Solution Acceptance Testing and system/solution optimization. Currently, handling following projects/tasks,

• Managing 24/7 network operations for Digital services/platforms and supervising all changes, testing and implementation of these systems.
• Fault Management and escalation on platforms, enforcing SLA with the vendor.
• Ability to interact and communicate effectively with cross cultural and cross functional teams
• Identify gray areas in live platforms and propose different solutions to fill those gaps.
• Review the design of new and existing platforms and provision of recommendations to the concern team.
• Assessing the offers based on commercial details, technical specifications, project considerations, compliance to RFP and financial proposals
• Vendor Management, Resource allocation, Reporting (Statistics, Performance, Dashboard & KPIs, Forecast), Risk and Issue management, Project team management.
• Capacity planning and analysis to serve as the benchmark for the current and future VAS/Digital platform requirements.
• Reporting with all aspects to identify the gray areas and also try to fill those gaps by applying different techniques.
• Co-ordinating with Planning and Marketing teams for Network Expansion and Roll-out of new systems and services.
• Supervising service and subscriber migrations on platforms.
• Audit platforms from the security perspective and takes actions accordingly.
• Acceptance and Assurance of new services deployed on platforms
• Scheduling and performing maintenance activities for projects and system upgrades.
• Vendor management like CP’s & SP’s
• Highlight fraud risk, and plan measures for safety.
• Participate in vendor selection process including requirements gathering, RFQ issuance, vendor evaluation, procurement, etc.
• Optimizing systems using tools and KPI statistics to ensure that system performs within its planned design parameters.
• Generating reports and data of performance and capacity analysis.
• Working closely with Finance and Revenue Assurance team to ensure timely creation of resources and minimizing revenue loss.
• Designing SOPs for tasks and processes to improve the efficiency of the department.
• Act as direct line manager for a team of consultants and engineers to review performance.
• Direct involvement with critical operations affecting the normal performance of the network.
• SLA management for Service Desk tickets.
• Manage L1 & L2 team of Operations including incident management.
• Partner/CP’s Management and Content management.
• Closely work with business teams for transforming their requirements into technical form.
• Work with business teams to bridge the gap in platforms from the technical perspective.
• Implement end to end, technical complaint process & system.
• Design setup for Disaster Recovery.
• Plan and manage related projects and conduct projects’ lifecycle from specifications to delivery, and organization.
• Monitor VAS’s cost-effective technical solutions to customers.
• Assess dimensioning of new services platforms (Hardware and Software.)
• Make the proposal to upgrade existing platforms.
• RFI/RFQ for Campaign Management Platform.
• Worked on managed services proposal for different operators.
• Point flaws under marketing campaigns (SMS) & share recommendation to business.
• Interaction with senior management on all problems.
• Develop and present technical weekly performance report to senior management.

• Developed detailed project work plans, coordinated project activities and identified resources needed to complete project tasks.
• Escalated as needed to resolve issues/ roadblocks thus ensuring project deliverables are met in a timely fashion.
• Evaluating solution proposals.
• Hosted weekly project status meetings and provided project reports to the PMO.
• Collaborated with development and QA teams to plan project sprints, monitor workflow and make timeline adjustments as needed.
• Responsible for direct customer interface, requirements gathering research and propose design solutions.
• Work closely with third party vendors.
• Collaborated across multiple teams including engineering, internal teams and vendors.

As an Assistant Manager VAS O&M in Technology division, I was responsible to Ensure Smooth operations and KPIs improvement of existing VAS services and platforms, as a senior team member I had involved in following activities.

• Ensure 24/7 service availability of VAS applications and infrastructures.
• Ensure that all Service Level Agreements are in place and adhered to by technical
services team to the business.
• Perform day to day operational tasks of VAS platforms with team members and guide
them how they can handle daily operational issues effectively.
• Ensured swift deployment, seamless integration and uninterrupted operations of VAS
platforms. Entertained 25 million (approx.) subscriber base through a range of diverse
and industry first platforms like:
- G&D Dynamic SIM Tool Kit Menu
- G&D Device Management System
- Location Base Service
- Gemalto Online Service Gateway & OTA platform
- Bulk SMS SMPP base solution.
- Mobile TV
- Blackberry
- Nokia & ZTE WAP Gateway.
- CRBT
- Nokia-Intellisync Push Mail Solution
- Web Self Services
- CSF - Telenor groups proprietary SDP
- USSD
- Telenor Web and WAP portals

• Operational management of in-house developed web-services.
• Discuss with vendor on the new features that can easily be incorporate with
Device Management System.
• Currently, working with commercial team on upturn the scope of SIM Tool KIT
Platform.
• Manage and provide good guidance to a team of engineers involved in planning,
Implementation, roll-out, upgrades and capacity management of in-house and
vendor based VAS platforms.
• Managing concurrent multi-vendor large Telco-grade projects and Inter-department
coordination for projects execution.
• Ensure Co-ordination with multiple Vendors for efficient resolution of issues and
incorporation of new features as well as roll out of new products on VAS O&M portfolio
• Plan and execute hardware and software upgrades activities to cater long and short term business requirements.
• Create H/W & S/W ATP cases for VAS Platforms.
• Participate in SRS, MVI & IOTs.
• Weekly present performance (KPI’s) reports to management for VAS Platforms/Services.
• Participate in vendor selection process including: requirements gathering, RFQ
issuance, vendor evaluation, procurement & etc.
• Architecture, design, implementation and capacity management of VAS Platforms
and Service Delivery Ecosystem.
• Ensure flow of information between technology and commercial VAS teams.
• Identify development areas and devise training / knowledge transfer plans for team
members to enhance their skills.

As a VAS O&M Executive, I was responsible all VAS Systems Operations, Maintenance and Enhancement. I have hands on operational & optimizing experience on different VAS platforms, highlights of major platforms are listed below;

• Dynamic SIM Tool Kit services (DSTK) (SmartTrust)
 Push the content services and USSD services on the subscriber SIM via OTA(Over The Air)and also responsible for their O&M tasks and upgrade.
• OTA (Over The Air) & Browsing platform (GEMALTO).
• CRBT (Colourful Ring Back Tone) (Huawei)
 Worked on the Huawei NGN based CRBT platform.
 Upgrade activities on the platform.
 Issues troubleshooting.
 Tone uploads & account maintenance for the vendors.

• Device Management System (DMS) (SmartTrust)
 Configure Handset with multiple profiles (WAP, Internet and MMS).
 Responsible for resolving and troubleshooting of all kind of technical issues related to DMS service, Upgrade activities, Patch Installation and Expansion Activities.
 Update Handset repository.
 Integrate with network probe.
 Customer/Self-care portal management.
 Automate subscriber provisioning mechanism.
 Issues troubleshooting.
 Configure new transport servers for new channels.

• Nokia Browsing Gateway (NSN)
 Upgrade activities on the platform.
 Routine maintenance task.
 Issues troubleshooting.

• Charging Systems
 PPI
 CG (Charging Gateway)
 VMS(VAS Mediation Server)
• Common Services Framework (CSF) (Oracle)
Telenor content/service delivery platform Ordering of content through both SMS and
WAP Portal. Responsible for complete O&M task as well as part of CFT of revamping of
CSF application.

• Web Self Service(WSS) (Creative Chaos)
It facilitates the customers to perform various activities on their subscription and get up to
date Information about their account through Web Portal.

• SMPP Bulk SMS Solution.
 It’s an internal build application that facilitates CRD and commercial departments in campaign launching.
 Responsible for resolving and troubleshooting of all kindly of technical issues related to this service

• Incoming Call Screening (ICS) (Huawei)
Currently working on Huawei IN based solution for In-coming call screening, perform daily
routine tasks, troubleshooting, system maintenance & upgrades.

• BlackBerry (RIM)
 Network provisioning of Telenor subscribers including connectivity between Telenor CRM and RIM setup.
 Deployment, monitoring and perform operational tasks of BES (version: 4 &5) server.

• Mobile Top-up:
It’s an in-house build application; the main feature of this application is to recharge the mobile account via debit card.
Perform all O&M of this application and also hands on experience of integration of application with banks.

• International Mobile Top-up:
It’s an in-house build application; the main feature of this application is to recharge the local mobile accounts from outside the country.
Perform all O&M of this application and also hands-on experience of integration of application with different 3rd party international vendors.
• Part of CFT in evaluating MSDP solution of different companies.
• Part of CFT in evaluating LBS solution of different companies.
• VPN/LA creation for 3PPs.
• Reporting traffic/analysis using BT.
• VAS applications integration with MAR & OMG over SMPP.
• Have good hands-on experience on installation of MySQL and on SQL Server.
• Have ample knowledge of NSN IN’s SW 7.9
• Perform normal IN migration and GT based IN migration on all VAS nodes.
• Hand-on operational experience of integration of different VAS applications with VOMS and MPOS.
• Perform daily health checks of all platforms.
• Business Object: Tool that is use for service reporting.
• Hands-on experience on Sun Solaris and/or HP-UX related operating system.
• Complete end to end TL9000 documentation for VAS department