Swedish-based world largest provider of telecom services, Ericsson has opened its first Africa regional support centre (RSC) in Ghana to deliver more efficient services to telecom operators on the continent. The centre would serve Ericsson’s corporate customers in 43 countries across sub-Saharan Africa. The company has four other regional centres in Mexico, China, Romania and India. Vice President of Operations and Country Manager for Ericsson Ghana, Alan Triggs told journalists the company had strong presence in Kenya, South Africa and Senegal, but they chose Ghana for the RSC because of the level of “connectivity, particularly the number of submarine fibre optics available to the country, economic and political stability, level of growth, strategic position, and a reliable education system that supplies necessary skill Ericsson needed. For starters, the centre is already employing some 20 young Ghanaian engineers and computer scientists from the University of Ghana, and Alan Triggs said the purpose was to harness and develop young talents across Africa. He noted that the rapid development and evolution of the telecoms industry across sub-Saharan Africa meant high demand for a wide range of support services, adding that Ericsson had therefore launched the RSC in Accra to ensure the delivery of fast, high quality support services to operators, covering core and access networks, value added systems, intelligent networks and network management systems. Alan Triggs said Ericsson was committed to providing a high quality of service to its customers, adding that with this center, Ericsson would be able to improve its response time by providing customers with expertise closer to home. Ericsson’s customers in Africa include MTN, Vodafone, Airtel, Tigo, Etisalat and others, and Alan Triggs noted that ahead of bringing the RSC to Ghana, Ericsson had collaborated with Airtel Ghana on corporate social responsibility activities, to provide support for and linkage between some rural school in Ghana and schools abroad. The Center also works closely with Ericsson’s global support service organization, drawing on experience from customer support operations all over the world. Vice President and Head of Product Related Services at Ericsson, Eva Elmstedt said “Ericsson has a long-standing history of working with proactive support services which improve the user experience by anticipating and preventing service disturbances.” In answer to a question about relative non-popularity of Sony-Ericsson phones in Africa, Eva Elmstedt said Ericsson core business was network services and not production of handsets and telecom devices, “and when it comes to network services we are a global leader.” Director-General of the Ghana-India Kofi Annan ICT Centre, Mrs. Dorothy Gordon said Ghana stands to benefits from the expertise Ericsson has unleashed unto Ghana, citing the RSC in Ghana, adding that one of their main focus was training and the Kofi Annan ICT Centre looked forward to collaborating with them in that direction. Ericsson’s service delivery framework is based on common processes, methods and tools shared between its global and regional operations. Ericsson has more than 65,000 service professionals in 180 countries, including an average of 15,000 subcontractors, which are well positioned to support customers’ services needs around the world.