“Your Career Advisor” is responding this week to:

• What does a Strategic Planning Manager do? (g)
• What is e learning and distance learning? (d)
• What certifications would be available to me in telecom? (d)

All reasonable questions related to careers, skill development or employment related issues – sent to advisor@skill-link.com - would be addressed in this section every week.

Q1: What does a Strategic Planning Manager do?
I noticed that in some large multinational companies and their subsidiaries in the Middle East, there is a job called Strategic Planning Manager. It sounds interesting, but am not really sure what it does.

Could you please provide me with an overview of this job and its responsibilities.

H. E. (Cairo)

Replying:

Dear Ms. E.

This job is not very common in companies, as you correctly said, it could be mainly found in large multinationals, where setting the strategy and direction becomes critical. While in other companies, we may not have a job holder carrying the title, it does not mean these companies should not be performing strategic planning… the Chief Executive Officer and the senior management team should be concerned with the future of the business and setting objectives.

Whether called Strategic Planning Manager, Director or Vice President, the job holder will typically have the following role:

"Working closely with the CEO and the senior management team, the holder of this position will play an important business planning and development role for the company. He/she is expected to oversee the long term planning process, the identification and and realisation of commercial opportunities develop, in addition to overseeing progress of the overall relationship between the company and key partners at a strategic level."

Summary Job Description:

• Lead the strategic planning efforts, soliciting input from all concerned parties. This will require working in partnership with the senior executive team, to develop a fully detailed Business Strategy to include stated objectives and action plans, inclusive of the mapping of relationship contact points, identifying potential gaps and exploiting new opportunities.
• Consolidate and integrate business plans, budgets and objectives.
• Manage, prepare and present strategic Planning/ Business Development projects, including studies on a wide range of strategic planning topics for committees and executive board members.
• Monitor performance / progress on a regular basis through agreed Key Performance Indicators.
• Assist the senior executive team in developing a set of cohesive programs to support the company business strategy.
• Keep informed on the latest developments (business, technology, regulation) in the market place (locally and internationally) and identifying synergies and opportunities for joint initiatives, ventures, partnerships.
• Promote and encourage the adoption and sharing of best industry and planning practices.
• Identify - in cooperation with others - business risks facing the company, promoting solutions and taking advantage of strategic business opportunities both internally and external to the business.
• Initiate and maintain appropriate contact points both internally and externally to ensure potential ideas and opportunities can be seriously considered and assessed for commercial viability.
• Ensure that all contact points are appropriately informed/advised of any issues which may affect or have a bearing on the current relationship or any future decisions being taken.
• Provide internal consulting and support to other division professionals and coordinate strategic planning studies with other departments.
• Directly manage certain cross-organizational initiatives delivering operational change or organizational effectiveness.

We hope the above was of some use to you.

Good Luck

Q2: What is e learning and distance learning?
I have been working for a little over 5 years in IT training, I like both information technology and teaching or training. There are currently numerous terms such as "e learning", "distance learning" etc… that I would like to know more about and the difference between them…

I would be also interested to know about the market for such services in Egypt.

G. S. (Egypt)

Replying:

Dear Mr. S.

Distance learning, is basically learning (education or other) away from a classroom or a face to face contact with a teacher or instructor. Unlike most people think, it is not new and not related to information technology. Learning by correspondence (via letters) has been around for several decades. Similarly learning a new language via books and tapes. However one cannot deny that IT has definitely boosted distance learning and made it more efficient and effective.

We will refer to the various education, learning and training opportunities as "e Knowledge", a general term that encompasses all of these. Hence, e Knowledge could be defined as a wide range of education, learning and edutainment products and services enabled and made more accessible through electronic technology; "e"-Knowledge is not only restricted to online training or education, for as the name implies, "online" involves using the Internet or an Intranet. CD-ROM and DVD can be used to provide learning materials.

The market for eKnowledge products and services is expected to grow strongly in the forthcoming years, providing both a challenge and an opportunity. This market or audience could be segmented into the following broad categories:

Edutainment
· Young children (kids) - aged 6 and less
Education
· School pupils - 6 to 18 year olds
· University (under graduate) students - 18 to 22 year olds
· University (post graduate) students - 22 to 35 (?) year olds
Learning / Continuous Education / Professional development
· For those above 22

eKnowledge is embryonic in Egypt and the Arab world with large growth potential. In every sector of education and training - from schools, through universities, to learning for work and pleasure - e-learning is increasingly being seen as a way to facilitate improvements to the availability and quality of learning.

Numerous factors support the projected growth in eKnowledge / eLearning demand in our region:

• The rapid development and fast pace of change in most fields and disciplines are rendering learning and education a life long undertaking. This combined with the relatively limited offering of diversified and up to date training / development / educational opportunities beyond the under graduate degree level throughout the Arab region (when compared to more advanced nations), has made eLearning a cost efficient and viable option.
• The demographics of Egypt and numerous Arab states indicate that over 50% of these populations are below the age of 20. This is the "learning" generation whether in schools, universities or pursuing other skill development venues.
• The Arab region has the lowest level of ICT access of any world region: only 0.6% of the population uses the Internet, and personal computer penetration is 1.2%. (as per the UNDP commissioned: The Arab Human Development Report 2002). These figures have no where to go but up hence more people online and / or using a PC.

In a number of Arab states, women's mobility and access to educational facilities is limited, eLearning would provide a practical and welcomed window of opportunity.

• The rapid development and fast pace of change in most fields and disciplines are rendering learning and education a life long undertaking. This combined with the relatively limited offering of diversified and up to date training / development / educational opportunities beyond the under graduate degree level throughout the Arab region (when compared to more advanced nations), has made eLearning a cost efficient and viable option.
• The demographics of Egypt and numerous Arab states indicate that over 50% of these populations are below the age of 20. This is the "learning" generation whether in schools, universities or pursuing other skill development venues.
• The Arab region has the lowest level of ICT access of any world region: only 0.6% of the population uses the Internet, and personal computer penetration is 1.2%. (as per the UNDP commissioned: The Arab Human Development Report 2002). These figures have no where to go but up hence more people online and / or using a PC.

And this will create lots of business and career opportunities in the Arab region the areas of:
1. content design, development and delivery
2. technical infrastructure design, development and support
3. administering offering of e Knowledge

We hope the above was of some use to you.
Good Luck

Q3: What certifications would be available to me in telecom?
I am a recent graduate of the Electronics and Communications Department at Cairo University's Faculty of Engineering. I am interested in working in the telecommunications field but haven't found a job yet so I was wondering what are the relevant certificates that I might try to obtain in the mean time, bearing in mind that I am not interested in networking related certificates like CCNA and MCP (Microsoft Certified Professional).

S. W. (Egypt)

Replying:

Dear Ms. W.

The field of telecommunication, as you are well aware includes more than networking, since WAN (wide area networks) and telecommunication service providers (fixed lines and GSM) are also key areas where one can build expertise and work. Even though the number of jobs in networking design and support is higher, hence there is more demand on CISCO and Novell certification.

You can find other certifications such as:

Convergence Technologies Professional (CTP) certification: validates that an individual has the core knowledge and skills required by equipment manufacturers, their channel partners, and end-users to sell and service convergence technologies. CTP shortens the path to vendor-specific certifications.

Certified in Convergent Network Technologies (CCNT): The Telecommunications Industry Association's (TIA) sponsored CCNT certificate program is a competency-based educational training of the common-industry terms, concepts and definitions developed for telecommunications companies and other network service providers that provide convergence services. The CCNT certificate program validates that an individual has the core knowledge required to sell and support convergence services.

This is of course in addition to vendor specific (eg. Nortel Networks, Sun and Avaya) or issue specific training (eg. IVR: interactive voice response), that would mainly be useful when you are on the job and can determine, what skill set you require for your particular situation, role and responsibilities.

We hope the above was of some use to you.
Good Luck

Note from the editor: 
Employer names and inquiry sender names were withheld for confidentiality

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