Wednesday 03 / July / 2024
Muscat: In line with its efforts to nurture development of the small and medium enterprises (SME) sector, Oman Telecommunications (Omantel), the Sultanate’s leading provider of integrated telecommunication services, has reaffirmed their commitment to growing small businesses with a dedicated range of SME-friendly service packages, along with a chance to achieve nationwide recognition through the acclaimed Omantel Business Excellence SME Awards.
Omantel official said that small and medium sized businesses are a vibrant and growing sector within the national economy. This sector is expected to play a significant role in realising the nation’s economic diversification goals while helping to create sustainable jobs and generate new entrepreneurial opportunities for young Omanis.
Ali Bakhit Kashoob, senior manager, product development corporate, said: “Omantel is the Sultanate’s first and leading integrated telecommunications services provider, enabling the digital society to flourish, allowing new ways of doing business and delivering a world of information, news and entertainment.”
“Omantel has always offered dedicated support for small and medium enterprises in the Sultanate in the form of specialised services tailored to the needs of their growing businesses. We wish to see every small enterprise flourish and grow, and these services are uniquely designed to be flexible, and grow according to the needs of each business,” he added.
“Omantel provides a suite of specialised telecommunications services created to match the needs of the small but growing business. Specialised services include the A’amali Service, which is a unique, all-in-one SME business solution, offering a total communications solution for the small and medium business. The SME package includes unlimited Internet, mobile and fixed line to free calls within the company. The A’amali SME package starts at only OMR29 per month,” Kashoob said.
“Meanwhile, the Mobile Business Prepaid Corporate Private Network (CPN) is a distinctive service that allows SMEs to make use of the CPN service and at the same time monitor and control costs. Just like Post-Paid CPN prepaid, CPN facilitates free calls between employees (2000 Minutes/user) provided that the organisation pays a fixed monthly amount per user. While for data reliant SMEs, the Shared Mobile Business Broadband service allows businesses to share a predefined data allowance amongst their employees, allowing for cost efficiency and flexibility of data usage between light and heavy users,” he explained.
For SMEs that operate from multiple locations or branches, the Fixed-Mobile CPN provides free calls to and from all branches of a single organisation equipped with ISDN PRI, and at the same time provides free calls between the ISDN PRI service of these branches and NAMA CPN of the same organisation. The service also includes a reduction in the prices of outgoing calls from ISDN PRI to any Omantel fixed line, as well as to any mobile phone from Omantel or any other operator in the Sultanate. Another cost saving service is Omantel’s SIP-trunk service, which allows easy communication between employees and customers over the Internet as a substitute to traditional fixed telephone networks which can be costly if not properly managed.
Additionally, for SMEs and their staff who are always on the go, the Mobile PBX service extends fixed-line PBX functionality to mobile devices. The service increases organisational availability, productivity and efficiency to employees giving them the flexibility to attend to calls even when they are out of their office.
And to keep tabs on internet usage, as well as spending, SMEs can subscribe to Omantel's Pay as You Go internet plan, which allows companies to only pay for what they use with no extra monthly fee. This is designed to give SMEs more control over telecom spending, while providing the best solution to use the ADSL service efficiently.
In addition to the specialised services provided to SMEs, Omantel launched the Business Excellence SME Awards in 2012 as part of the company’s commitment to nurturing entrepreneurship and the growth of small and medium enterprises in Oman. This was the first award initiative from Omantel, which celebrates and recognises small and medium entrepreneurs, both for their contribution towards diversifying the national economy and the development of the business sector in Oman.
The Business Excellence SME Awards aims at creating a greater awareness of the importance of SME development. It is a platform to celebrate Oman’s top performing SMEs, providing them opportunities to network and growth. Through the SME awards, Omantel supports the culture of transparency, corporate governance and best practice sharing, which will accelerate the social and economic development of the nation. Omantel is committed to supporting the objectives of the government to develop the SME sector and enable them to play an active role in the social and economic progress of Oman.
Omantel held the fourth edition of its Business Excellence SME Awards during a glittering ceremony held in December 2015. Reflecting the rapid rise of the SME sector in Oman, the latest round recorded the highest number of entries since the awards were first launched in 2012. To date, a total of 22 SMEs have won the Omantel Business Excellence SME awards. There were ten winners from the 2012 and 2013 awards, and 12 winners from the 2014 and 2015 awards.
