Louisa Sosu: In the driving seat for quality service
Tucked in a corner behind her computer in a spacious office on the eighth floor of the Ridge Towers in Accra, an ever-smiling young woman of average built and height constantly maps out ways to tackle the challenges that affect the quality of service provided by her employer of about eight years, MTN Ghana.
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Mrs Louisa Ama Sosu is a Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology-trained electrical engineer and the Network Quality and Reporting Manager at MTN Ghana.
Since last September, her concerns about quality of service have extended beyond what MTN Ghana provides to embrace the quality of service telecommunication companies all over the world give to their customers.
At the 30th International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Quality of Service Development Group (QSDG) meeting at the La Palm Royal Beach Hotel in Accra, she was chosen as the Vice Chairperson for the QSDG.
“Ghana has in the past been mostly represented by officials from the National Communication Authority (NCA). With my joining the QSDG, it will introduce the operator side of the equation,” says Mrs Sosu.
Her duties will include initiating research documents in relation to network performance, quality of service and quality of experience of telecommunication/ICT networks and services.
She will also be in charge of preparations towards QSDG workshops, meetings and seminars and also sensitise members/ delegates from around the world to attend QSDG events.
She will serve in the Vice Chairperson capacity for a term of two years, which may be renewed by the group executive committee of the QSDG.
“I will work closely with the Telecom Chamber of Ghana in identifying areas we need to focus on. With the aid of the technical sub-committee of the chamber, which comprises all the operators in Ghana, I will be collating their inputs and highlighting them at QSDG workshops and seminars.”
Married with three children, Mrs Sosu is a certified member of the Ghana Institution of Engineers. She was adjudged the best engineer in the electrical and electronic category in 2011 when she sat the examination for certification.
“If you don’t meet customer expectation, you are at the losing end,” says Mrs Sosu who is currently studying for an MBA in Supply Chain Management at the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA).
“There is a certain minimum quality of service that operators need to give to customers. I know that we in Ghana do our best to meet that requirement but there are some challenges which sometimes derail our efforts.”
According to Mrs Sosu, providing good quality telecommunication service for customers entails a variety of factors which are not always under the control of the operators.
“Reliable supply of electricity and the rate of inflation, for instance, affect our services but we cannot always pass on costs to customers.”
She said having to deal with a variety of regulatory bodies to get their job done is sometimes time-consuming and not always the most efficient way to secure good quality service for consumers.
“In some countries, there is just a single body to deal with. In other places, which include ours, one has to deal with multiple outfits if one wants to erect a mast, for example.
“There are also the challenges of people stealing batteries and fuel from our generators which are mainly in place as back-up against electric power outages. Optic fibres get cut through road construction and galamsey activities and they all affect service quality. Even the type of phone one uses affects the quality of service received.”
Mrs Sosu, who attended the Holy Child School in Cape Coast for her Senior Secondary education, believes the quality of tuition and encouragement received from the school’s authorities greatly influenced her perception about what one needed to do to succeed in life.
“The training at Holy Child was unique. The authorities used to encourage us to be women of substance. They put discipline in us and believed we could grow to be of service to our communities and nation. That filled us with ambition to make something of ourselves.”
The discipline of learning acquired from Holy Child, Mrs Sosu says, was extremely useful during her university days. She feels one of the best gifts any parent can give a child is to instill the habit of learning in him or her.
She says she was blessed to have been the child of an educationist and a military officer who all took pride in good education and imbued her with the spirit to learn and explore the world around her.
“I believe in the five MTN values of Leadership, Integrity, Relationship, Innovation and Can-Do. In addition, I have some personal core values of Commitment, Dependability, Trust, Wisdom and Love. All these put together summarise what I stand for and seek to do with this new appointment as Vice Chairperson of the QSDG,” says Mrs Sosu who is married to Mr Edem Sosu, a staff of the Atomic Energy Commission.