Senior Architect - Billing, Charging and VAS at MTN Nigeria

MTN Nigeria is part of the MTN Group, Africa\'s leading cellular telecommunications company. On May 16, 2001, MTN became the first GSM network to make a call following the globally lauded Nigerian GSM auction conducted by the Nigerian Communications Commission earlier in the year. Thereafter the company launched full commercial operations beginning with Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt. MTN paid $285m for one of four GSM licenses in Nigeria in January 2001. To date, in excess of US$1.8 billion has been invested building mobile telecommunications infrastructure in Nigeria. Since launch in August 2001, MTN has steadily deployed its services across Nigeria. It now provides services in 223 cities and towns, more than 10,000 villages and communities and a growing number of highways across the country, spanning the 36 states of the Nigeria and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. Many of these villages and communities are being connected to the world of telecommunications for the first time ever. The company\'s digital microwave transmission backbone, the 3,400 Kilometre Y\'elloBahn was commissioned by President Olusegun Obasanjo in January 2003 and is reputed to be the most extensive digital microwave transmission infrastructure in all of Africa. The Y\'elloBahn has significantly helped to enhance call quality on MTN network.

Mission:

• Create an architecture vision and blueprint for Business Support Systems (BSS) and Value-Added Services (VAS) across the technology value chain and ensure alignment with MTN group standards and framework covering OSS and BSS system deployment and integration and associated applications and infrastructure across the value chain.
• Responsible for the overall design of the application and mapping client business requirements to systems and technical requirements; ensuring sound architectural principles are consistently enforced; ensuring development standards are in place and adhered to; preparing architecture documents, artifacts, and presentations; and responsible for developing system architecture, roadmaps, scopes, and defining key capabilities and other non-functional requirements.

Description:

• Evaluate developments in architecture in the local and international business environment and recommend value-adding improvements to MTNN’s VAS architecture roadmap.
• Leads the improvement in the utilization of current Enterprise VAS "Portfolio" capabilities
• Lead the coordination of the evolution of existing BSS and VAS platforms to support enterprise strategy, avoid platform/capabilities duplication, and ensure optimal asset utilization (hence, avoid asset wastage).
• Provide strategic context for system evolution in response to the constantly changing business environment.
• Develop a change strategy with respect to BSS and VAS systems.
• Defines standards and guidelines for systems/solutions procurement or deployment for BSS and VAS/IN platforms.
• Defines value chain, and enterprise capabilities as it relates to BSS and VAS/IN platforms/applications & services.
• Determines overall modeling standards, guidelines, best practices, modeling techniques (TOGAF 9), and other industry frameworks.
• Ensures architectural validity (completeness) and compliance with the MTN Group Enterprise Architecture Framework and Principles.
• Develops and documents appropriate architecture activities, reports, etc. per functional area.
• Define BSS and VAS/IN applications architecture and design.
• Design the architectural landscape to accomplish cross-system objectives and advantageous trade-offs across the ecosystem.
• Ensure the alignment of enterprise architecture with the business strategy throughout the cycle of innovation, planning, and delivery.
• Develop the architecture (current state, transition state, and future state) considering the logical grouping of activities.
• Document the concept models and describe the interfaces and functions of the architectural elements.
• Develop solution sets and case studies as a body of knowledge and reference point for reuse and fast delivery.
• Coach and train the team to ensure understanding of the objectives and goals of the department, awareness of set targets and requirements, and regular review of their training needs.
• Review the performance of individual team members and complete appraisals in accordance with the employee performance appraisal procedures and time schedules.

Education:

• First degree in computer science, engineering, or its equivalent
• Possession of a postgraduate degree in related disciplines such as IT or engineering will be an advantage.
• Fluent in English

Experience:

6–13 years’ experience, which includes:

• A minimum of 3 years’ experience in an area of specialization, with experience in supervising or managing others
• Experience working in a medium- to large organization
• Experience in Enterprise Architecture (Business, Applications, VAS/IN)
• Experience in integrating applications and technology in a complex environment.
• Practicable Telco 2.0 experience
• Experience in Service Delivery Platforms, BSS, and VAS/IN Implementation and Solution Delivery
• In-depth experience in architecture governance and standards, business capability and value chain analysis, and application portfolio management (APM)
• Good experience in IT architecture and underlying frameworks such as TOGAF and SOA, including the development and ensuring adherence to architecture principles and standards
• Possess the experience of translating business requirements into systems, scope, solutions, and architecture definitions.
• Good working knowledge of eTOM, TOGAF, Value Added services applications, prepaid management systems, Customer Management & Billing, Service Delivery platforms, and SOA.
• Good working knowledge of NPV, IRR, ROI, and TCO
• Deep knowledge of service delivery platforms or telco service development, particularly mobile data, and converged services
• Deep knowledge of industry standards and trends related to service delivery platforms, value-added services, and intelligent network systems
• Good knowledge of Agile delivery methodologies

Method of Application