Zain launches internal transformation program, ‘UNITY’, to infuse Purpose and Customer Experience into company’s DNA

• Bader Al-Kharafi: “The UNITY initiative reflects our desire for all Zainers to work with a purpose and enhance collaboration that will positively impact customers”

• Group-wide senior management complete workshop with Professor Dan Cable, renowned academic of Organizational Behavior, and Dr Zanna Van Der Aa, a CX expert

Zain Group announces the launch of a new company-wide culture transformation program: ‘UNITY’, which infuses Purpose and Customer Experience into the company’s DNA, by prioritizing a human-centric approach and enhancing collaboration by having all its people come together to be on the same level playing field.

UNITY was officially launched in a workshop held at Zain’s headquarters in Kuwait and attended by Bader Al-Kharafi, Zain Vice-Chairman and Group CEO; Nawaf Al Gharabally, Zain Kuwait CEO, all operations’ CEOs and senior management from across the Group. Renowned academic, Professor Dan Cable, who lectures on Organizational Behavior at the London Business School, and Dr Zanna Van Der Aa, a reputed expert in the field of customer experience were on-hand in Kuwait to lead the workshop on Purpose and Culture.

Zain’s corporate value of ‘Belonging’ is set to be re-orientated through this customer experience transformation, resulting in a robust 10-week culture change program that will align all Zain teams to the company’s purpose. At a Group level, UNITY will be championed by Bader Al-Kharafi, with Zain Kuwait being the first operating company in the Group to roll out the program formally, championed by Nawaf Al Gharabally.

Bader Al-Kharafi commented: “This initiative reflects our desire for all Zainers to work with a purpose and enhance groupwide collaboration to create impact internally, that will ultimately positively impact our customers. Our people need to shift to do things differently, bringing down barriers and obstacles with a new energy in how they work together. Our customers will feel it, when employees feel it, and that is UNITY.”

Zain has been a customer-centric organization since its founding four decades ago, and this has been one of many key ingredients in its success. However, in an increasing data-centric world the importance of articulating and measuring programs, UNITY represents the formalization of Zain’s customer experience activities and their impact, to place this aspect of Zain’s operations at the very heart of the organization.

The critical business need for the UNITY initiative is a result of interactions with and feedback from Chief Commercial Officers from across the Group, where the need to define and coordinate a consistent and transparent measure of customer experience in a collaborative manner was identified. Ultimately, UNITY will be a tool to encompass Zain’s overarching purpose driven customer experience strategy, which will be clearly communicated and tracked at the Group and opco levels, as it is formally included within Zain’s highly impactful 4Sight corporate strategy.

A 360-degree evaluation of Zain Kuwait’s current customer experience posture will be undertaken over a 10-week period, in coordination with Dr Zanna Van Der Aa. This deep-dive will be followed by a four-month transformation plan actioned to frame a measurable impact on Zain Kuwait’s customers experience that will incorporate a detailed set to metrics and results. A similar approach is set to be replicated in other Zain opcos in due course.

The UNITY program will be guided internally jointly by the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), Commercial, Strategy and HR & Purpose departments.