Having Launched In Dubai, Digital Services Provider Mondia Group Is Now Setting Its Sights On The World Launched in Dubai in 2000, Mondia operates across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, with a total of over 1.4 billion end-users across 48 countries. It operates multiple verticals, including health and digital payments, that cater to companies and telecommunications operators across a plethora of markets and cultures.

The COVID-19 crisis has caused a sharp increase in the consumption of digital content and urged businesses to rethink their strategies for engaging with customers digitally. When it comes to the usual customer acquisition-customer retention formula, the latter seems to have gained more importance in the recent months. "With new revenue streams hard to come by, companies are focusing on customer retention, as it costs five times less to retain existing customers than acquiring new ones," says Dr. Amadeo Rahmann, CEO of Mondia Group, a technology company that specializes in the marketing and distribution of digital content. "They are realizing that if they increase customer retention by 5%, it can increase profits between 25-95%."

Launched in Dubai in 2000, Mondia operates across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, with a total of over 1.4 billion end-users across 48 countries. It operates multiple verticals, including health and digital payments, that cater to companies and telecommunications operators across a plethora of markets and cultures. Speaking about how the basic business model of Mondia's services works, Dr. Rahmann says, "We work with more than 80 telco operators around the world, over 1,000 content providers and 200 merchants to create personalized digital experiences for subscribers by providing them with the best and latest digital content from health, entertainment, lifestyle, gaming, music to sports. We also help enterprise customers grow their user engagement and maximize their monetization potential through payment connectivity, customer acquisition, and life cycle management services."

However, since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, Mondia has had to find new solutions to help its clients better engage with their customers digitally. Last June, the Mondia team launched Enterprise, a new vertical that offers the use of tailor-made content to help brands solidify the relationship with existing customers and catalyze the acquisition of new ones by getting a better understanding their digital behaviors. It is a direct consequence of their thorough understanding of digital behaviors, as Simon Rahmann, CEO of Mondia's digital payment entity, Mondia Pay, explains. "In general, there has been a surge in digital consumption across all categories," he says. "In addition, there has been a decrease in the overall consumer spending resulting in customers looking for more added value. Mondia is perfectly positioned to adapt to the changing consumer landscape,; we are agile and have our own R&D, UX/UI team and tech delivery hub, which allows us to respond to current market conditions. One example of how we adapted to current conditions is that we have given customers the option of subscribing to bundled services, which is proven to deliver added value."

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Another area where fast digitization is the need of the hour, especially in a world where social distancing is a matter of health and safety, is contactless payment. Mondia Pay has seen a change of consumer perceptions and behaviors in this area, and Rahmann explains that this sudden shift has allowed for more business merchants to break into emerging markets as well– something that wasn't possible in a pre-COVID-19 world. "New opportunities have been identified by merchants to expand their offering to emerging markets, where the collection of payment has been the overarching barrier of entry," he says. "Social distancing has fast-tracked the adoption of digital payments, and this is evident with this business vertical." An increase in payment integration service requests has been noted from premium merchants and Mondia Pay's transactions on average have tripled over the last six months, and currently boasts of 900 million transactions per month.

At the same time, one of the biggest challenges the world at large continues to face is that of health and safety, and thus, the telehealth and telemedicine sectors are already high on Mondia's agenda. "Mondia Health's vision is to provide customized digital health solutions, making cross-border digital healthcare services accessible to even the most vulnerable and remote societies around the world," says Dr. Rahmann. "The upsurge in telemedicine can accomplish far more than just reactive urgent care or a virtual consultation; it points the way towards a robust system, capable to treat every major health crisis impacting the community at large." One of the company's initiatives in this regard is Mum and Baby, a stage-based mobile health platform, to provide users with maternal, neonatal, and child healthcare information, which is currently being developed for use in the African market. Amid the coronavirus pandemic, Mondia also joined the race to make tests for the disease more accessible- it co-created a COVID-19 self-assessment tool in Pakistan. "With an estimated of one-third of the global population facing a lockdown, the need for remote healthcare is accelerating telemedicine, a trend noticed prior to the COVID-19 pandemic," Dr. Rahmann says. "We have teamed up with clinical medical experts to help identify a wide range of medical conditions, including COVID-19 tracking and treatment, through the use of smart data in real-time. Smart data has enabled us to respond faster and reach a wider range of patients in remote locations who have limited access to primary healthcare. We are also using smart data in research to help pharma companies address specific health issues in selected demographics."

In achieving all of this, Dr. Rahmann is showcasing Mondia's international outlook on how it goes about growing its business, with its team being dispersed across the Middle East, Africa and Europe. "Mondia operates from 13 locations across the globe, and has a representation of 37 nationalities that collectively speak 22 languages," he says. "Our diversity supports our innovative approach, which starts with each individual making an impact in delivering solutions people want. Mondia embraces a "glocal' attitude, where we think global and act local to adapt to our diverse customer base." On a closing note, when asked about what Mondia's future plans entail, Dr. Rahmann's points towards the African continent as being a key focus market. "Our mission is to digitalize Africa, as we are well-positioned to rapidly expand to East, West, and Central Africa. We have recently signed a strategic partnership with Huawei as its technical platform partner in Africa. This is proof of our abilities and expertise, and sets us apart from any other player in the region." And given the world's ever-increasing dependence on digitalized services, Mondia's growth will certainly be one to look out for.

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