Luminary Pakistan

Chairman & CEO
China Mobiles Pakistan

Feel the difference with Pakistan’s Fastest 4G Network ZONG

Mr. Liu Dianfeng graduated from Harbin Engineering University in 1991 with a Bachelors of Engineering in Navigation Engineering, completing his EMBA in 2007 from Cheung Kong graduate school of business.

Mr. Liu has an extensive experience working at China Mobiles spanning over 17 years holding multiple leadership positions of Chief Technical Officer & Chief Commercial officer Beijing Company, Chairman of the Labor Union & chief Commercial Officer at Jilin Company. He also has a diverse experience starting up his own business in China. His primary focus has been on network planning and online education.

Luminary: What was your vision for Zong when you joined?
Mr. Liu Dianfeng: As a team leader of Zong, my first job is always to have a satisfied and a happy customer, so my first vision for zong was to be the most effective yet innovative telecom service provider for our customers, to make their lives better & faster, and technology bridges the gap between where we are today to where we want to be. But technology alone doesn’t serve the purpose, it needs a very strong enabler to make it effective. Our goal is to make sure we use the most advanced technology and enable it with human intelligence to serve our customers take a leap in a better lifestyle, which makes the Pakistani people compete in the global environment of Telecommunication.

Luminary: Does the word Zong mean anything?
Mr. Liu Dianfeng: Zong is the international brand of China Mobile Communication. The literal meaning is along the lines of “China’s Open Gate”, in local translation, it means “Say Everything”, or “Sub Keh Do”. This speaks to the openness our organization represents and the unlimited potential we offer to innovate and enhance the telecommunication sector of Pakistan through our customers, our technology as well as our experience.

Luminary: Zong has emerged as the fastest growing mobile network in Pakistan, to what do you owe this success to ?
Mr. Liu Dianfeng: There are many factors for this phenomenal growth over the last 8 years, I think the first is the mindset. Even though Pakistan has challenges in the corporate sector, our employees take all these challenges as opportunities, and this mindset makes a lot of difference, because then the gap between where we are and where we want to get more clearer, and if you combine this with a passionate and hardworking staff, there is no stopping to your goal. I also strongly believe that we may not had this growth on our side, without the support of our loyal customers as well as our parent company China mobile communication corporation, which is the largest telecom service provider in the world, so I must say, we have an edge, we have a lot of skills we can, and we do leverage from CMCC, which makes a happy customer, and in turn gives us exponential growth.

Luminary: In a competitive market like Pakistan, how has zong managed to position itself so strongly in the last few years?
Mr. Liu Dianfeng: I think customer centricity is the key to this. We focus more on the customers than on ourselves, and on a daily basis, our engineers, our field technicians, our researchers, our commercial & customer care teams are working very hard to solve their problems and develop the best solutions possible at a fair price.

For every business, the most difficult part is to keep a balance in quality of product, timely service & fair price, and I think Zong has done a very good job in all 3 of these areas. Our 3G services are the best in the nation, our MBB (mobile broad band) has shown tremendous results in the first quarter of launch, our customer care statistics of complaint resolution are the best in the industry and we offer the most competitive prices of our latest technology.

At the same time, we have significantly invested in our nationwide network in order to expand and improve its overall coverage to create a new and unique customer experience, and this capital investment from CMCC is yielding great results for us !

So, if you do this balancing act for quality, time, price, the customer & the market responds, the only think you got to make sure is you don’t lose the momentum of this balance!

Luminary: Zong was the only mobile network in Pakistan to bid for 4G spectrum, do you think it has given you a competitive edge in the market ?
Mr. Liu Dianfeng: Absolutely! There is no comparison to having the latest technology on your side when you think about market competition. We are proud to have 4G with us, infact, china mobile communicationcorporation is the world’s largest 4G traffic carrier. The dynamics of data traffic operations are very different than voice, and we understand this because CMCC has experience in data traffic. I think the more important thing is how do we use the 4G spectrum to Zong’s advantage and to our customers advantage, because that’s what really matters, our customers taking advantage of our latest technology to make their lives a better place on a daily basis. 4G is very successful in China, and the common people take advantage of it to learn, implement, lead and innovate. We want to
leverage this for the people of Pakistan as well.

Luminary: Given the tough competition, how do you view the prospects of the telecom sector in the future
and the challenges for the industry?
Mr. Liu Dianfeng: I think the telecom sector is probably the most challenging sector in terms of business in Pakistan. Taxes are high, competition is tough, and there are areas where market penetration and daily operations are difficult to manage due to the law and order situation. At the same time, all this leads to a big vacuum for innovation. How effectively we can place and sell our products to our customers, yet alone, how to sustain the changing market conditions is very challenging. And I must say, there are very capable competitors in Pakistan as well, which adds to the dynamic market situation. I strongly believe that having a strong competition is healthy, it pushes us towards innovation, creativity as well as how smartly we execute our ideas into practical actions for our customers. We love competition! In the future, it will be interesting to see how this new equation of fair & healthy competition re-shapes the local telco industry.

Luminary: How does zong differentiate itself from its competitors?
Mr. Liu Dianfeng: Technological innovation and how we effectively take care of our customers. The future of telecommunication in Pakistan is more on data than voice, and with Zong having the 4G capability, we are working with many other industries in Pakistan to innovate on this platform. For example, we are working with the electronic media companies to offer them 4G services to broadcast their news and information faster than any of our competitor. At the same time, we are offering MBB solutions to our students in Pakistan, for them to have quicker and a more reliable internet connection to open the doors of knowledge to them at an exponential scale through our 4G network, we are also penetrating our rural market with 4G services. At this point in time, we have the highest number of 4G sites in Pakistan serving 30 cities, and our 3G services covering more than 100 cities. To add to this, we have carpet coverage on the motorway with our 3G, which provides seamless coverage of our network to travelers on this route, through bus, car or rail. Being the only 3G & 4G carrier in the local market gives us a unique edge with our competitors and we are using it to the best of our ability and are targeting our direct and indirect channel in parallel to offer our 3G & 4G services in a unique way, which is the unparalleled in Pakistan for any other competitor.

In summary, I must acknowledge that we are a company beyond just technology. We want to compete with our competitors at a very different level. It is our core desire to improve the life style of Pakistani people, and we are confident we can because we have the right experience and background. We want to build a platform to support the Pakistani people, based on their own local requirements. For us, customer is # 1, service is # 1, customer experience and customer benefit is #1. In the future, we hope and wish to contribute more and more to the Pakistani society through key initiatives and special projects.