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Omnichannel shopping has become one of the key driving factors of future in-store and online shopping experience. According to a global market research, companies with omnichannel customer engagement strategies retain on average 89% of their customers, compared to customer retention rate of 33% for companies with weak omnichannel customer engagement.
Infobip is a global leader in omnichannel engagement powering a broad range of messaging channels, tools and solutions for advanced customer engagement, authentication and security.
In this interview, the Head of Telecom Partnerships Africa at Infobip, Mirza Bukva shared his thoughts about how infobip is helping her clients and partners overcome the complexity of consumer communications in a fast, secure and reliable way. He also provided perspectives on the business environment, the competitive landscape, the impact of the recent partnership with Expresso on Africa and the future business trajectory.
We would like to know a bit about your background, your current role and how Infobip has fared globally putting Africa into perspective.
I’ve been with Infobip for 5 years now and I’ve had a what you call standard Infobip career trajectory, starting out with wholesale SMS and moving forward with the company as new products and technologies were being added. I’m proud to say that Infobip gave me many opportunities and I feel my recent appointment as Head of Operator Partnerships Africa is my high point so far. In this role I oversee and coordinate Infobip’s approach to telcos as partners and providers, but also clients. Our telco product portfolio has evolved from wholesale SMS into a wide array of services that generate revenue for mobile operators and enable them to better engage with their user base.
Africa has always been a strategic market for Infobip ever since A2P SMS was the bulk of Infobip’s business, and that’s also reflected in 8 Infobip offices in Africa, most notably Casablanca, Johannesburg, Lagos and Nairobi and it continues to be the region with the highest growth potential.
Traditionally a mobile-friendly market, we’re seeing the same trends in Africa as in other markets – moving business communication to the cloud and primarily to smartphones, which, according to Statista, are expected to account for over 60% of mobile connections by 2025. This will allow for a significant growth in mobile services and app, which will in turn open more opportunities for Infobip.
In some ways, Africa has been ahead of the curve when it comes to mobile services. Mobile money is a shining example of an innovative service with a profound impact for users, and certainly there are more ideas brewing across the continent. Improved infrastructure gives more connectivity and bandwidth to support various services, and in the process, the innovative spirit of African entrepreneurs as well.
Infobip as a leading global leader in customer engagement, leveraging cross channel execution techniques in service delivery. How has the journey been so far? And how has it improved customers experience?
Customer communications have changed dramatically with the introduction of chat apps, high smartphone penetration and immediate availability of services. Users have grown accustomed to using their phones for virtually anything and have little patience for legacy forms of customer communications. This is where enterprises need to step up and meet the needs of their user base, by introducing flexible, cloud-based multichannel solutions. It drives up customer satisfaction, but is also becoming a competitive advantage – shoppers will have no doubts about dropping a vendor for one that communicates more effectively and in line with their expectations.
For instance, immediate requests for information or assistance can be made via WhatsApp or other chat apps, and increasing social media like Instagram. Online purchase confirmation can be done via an SMS PIN for example, while the invoice is sent to the shopper’s email address. The variations and the possibilities are endless and cloud-based tools make life easier for sales and support agents as well.
Congratulations on your recent partnership with Expresso how huge of an impact do you think this is to Africa in terms of Business to Customer and Customer to Business communications.
Mobile operators are in the same boat as other enterprises: they too have big customer bases that require instant and efficient communication. Plus, customers will expect an operator to be a leader in digital communication, so introducing cloud-based solutions can go a long way in reaffirming an operator’s role as a communication provider. Expresso is our latest partner in cloud communications space and there’s a huge potential for other operators across the continent.
African enterprises are acutely aware of the needs of their customers, and now they have the tools to talk to them – using the right channel at the right time.
Infobip has over the years evolved into an engineering powerhouse that has spread over 6 continents. How did Infobip get to this point?
Work and reliance on your own forces and a continuous learning loop with a steely focus on purposeful innovation. A self-funded company from the outset, we’ve only recently got our first outside funding with which Infobip has made three strategic acquisitions bringing much talent, particularly in the engineering space. This year too Infobip introduced the role of Chief Developer Experience Officer who along with creating global developer conferences, the department addresses the B2C market by conducting outreach to developers through teams of developer advocates and all-new Startup outreach programs. So far it’s been the vision of the management driving a skilled and ambitious workforce worldwide.
Our people are our strength, and all our offices are staffed by local experts who know their market and the technology, but also have the resources of a global company at their disposal.
Plans for the future are big, and include acquisitions as well as investments in technology, culminating in going public on one of the major stock markets.
How difficult was it to penetrate the various continents? And were the experiences similar across the different continents?
Each market comes with its own set of challenges, but each time the strategy has been to find ambitious people and make them Infobippers. Before the pandemic, all new employees attended the live academy at Infobip headquarters, educating them on the company’s business and technology, but also building team spirit between people literally from all over the world. Sharing experiences and challenges from different markets helped build a global approach with a local flavour, with each Infobipper contributing to the knowledge base.
What is the one thing that Infobip has mastered over the years? And what are the unique lessons learnt from the African Market?
Building meaningful relationships with clients and partners is crucial for success.
Little surprise that that’s exactly what our solutions enable enterprises to do. I would say relationships are very important in Africa, and that’s a cultural trait that we share, making it more natural to engage and maintain business relationships that often go beyond just business.
What do you think Infobip is doing right that other competitors aren’t doing?
Our competitors are all great companies with dedicated employees, but I would have to say the solid and well-thought out foundations set early in the company’s life, technology-wise as well as sales vision. Combine those with a clear vision and company values that include team spirit, passion, courage and integrity together with the overall company’s success, and the willingness to try, fail and try again, the results are here.
What does the future hold for Infobip? Anything else you would like to share with us?
The next big thing about Infobip will definitely be the IPO in the next two years.
That will give us more funding to develop our emerging products – identity and biometrics, Artificial Intelligence, and Internet of Things. Those are our current big projects that will be a part of the Infobip platform, providing more building blocks so that each client, an enterprise or a developer, can pick the ones they need to build their own app or system.
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