Alan Knott-Craig talks network quality and pricing

kingdong said:
His statement that price is not an effective competitive mechanism indicates the deal knell of Cell C being a competitor against the other giants. Im afraid he has already sunk the boat before he even takes the helm. Good bye Cell C.
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As already mentioned,collusion here we come.
 
“You cannot price yourself into the game,” said Knott-Craig.
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But you sure as hell can price yourself out of it .. like you did when you were still at Vodacom.

Ugh .. like I said, now we'll be spammed by this tool's "insight", I'd rather he ****.

edit: **** = abbreviation for fark off and die. wow, some profanity filter you have there.
 
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I expect he got the job because he promised a faster ROI for the investors. I'm guessing Lars Reichelt and the Board fell out over that timetable.

One thing AKC knows all about is keeping prices high.

Well with 4 players in the field now, it should be possible to move one's business around until they get the message. I mean, I recently ported my Vodacom number (after 6 years with them) to 8ta. Works for me!
 
evilstebunny said:
But you sure as hell can price yourself out of it .. like you did when you were still at Vodacom.

Ugh .. like I said, now we'll be spammed by this tool's "insight", I'd rather he ****.

edit: **** = abbreviation for fark off and die. wow, some profanity filter you have there.
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Huh? When he left vodacom, weren't they the biggest or second biggest telcoms company in SA? So he never priced Vodacom out the game
 
JStrike said:
Huh? When he left vodacom, weren't they the biggest or second biggest telcoms company in SA? So he never priced Vodacom out the game
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Not talking about the company as a whole, I was referring to when people left VC in droves to join Cell-C & later 8ta while VC still charged > R200/gig.

Whatever .. just don't expect Cell-C to shine like they did under Lars, this one has shown that he does not care about consumers he actually said in the article he's not going to price Cell-C back into the game.

edit: plus he's not too fond of the truth, like we just saw once again.
 
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evilstebunny said:
Not talking about the company as a whole, I was referring to when people left VC in droves to join Cell-C & later 8ta while VC still charged > R200/gig.

Whatever .. just don't expect Cell-C to shine like they did under Lars, this one has shown that he does not care about consumers he actually said in the article he's not going to price Cell-C back into the game.

edit: plus he's not too fond of the truth, like we just saw once again.
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To be fair to him, CellC only saw a tiny uptick on users (100000 or 200000 people if I remember correctly), certainly not "droves". Just because it was popular on MyBB, doesn't make it representative of the real world
 
To not be fair to him, hundreds of thousands of customers does not sound like a small trickle to me.

Are you perhaps related?
 
Tomasz-London said:
Yeah, AKC has to familiarise him self with... What nonsense, surely he should have done that before taking on the job??? Utter nonsense!!!
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No, not really. If you start a new job, do you know exactly what goes on in the company? Did they show you everything for months and then ask "Well, what do you think? Want the job?".

For CellC to give him the strategy Lars put in place before he accepts the job would be suicide as there would be no reason for him not to go and join say Vodacom again (with CellC's strategy and core secrets fresh in his mind).
 
evilstebunny said:
To not be fair to him, hundreds of thousands of customers does not sound like a small trickle to me.

Are you perhaps related?
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Must you be related to be able to use a calculator? ;)

Your 'droves' calculate to less than 1%.....not a significant number taking into account this was a 3rd player attacking the 2 incumbents. The real question is, why so little?

In any case, those commenting here who've successfully built a R100Billion over the last two decades, your views are interesting.

I wish Alan nothing but the best of luck. He's going to need it. :)
 
jannievanzyl said:
Must you be related to be able to use a calculator? ;)

Your 'droves' calculate to less than 1%.....not a significant number taking into account this was a 3rd player attacking the 2 incumbents. The real question is, why so little?

In any case, those commenting here who've successfully built a R100Billion over the last two decades, your views are interesting.

I wish Alan nothing but the best of luck. He's going to need it. :)
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My rant was about how people left 'cos AKC was too greedy to lower prices despite the reductions Seacom caused, not how well or not Cell-C did against what was effectively a duopoly (also AKC's doing btw). More people would have left were it not for begin locked into existing contracts, a business practice specifically designed to prevent customers jumping ship. Surely you of all people should know that.

And please, not having built my own company of R100bil does not disqualify me (or anyone) from recognizing a polished turd for what it is.

What would be interesting would be your opinion on how he tried to fob himself off as a champion of lower prices afterwards, while being the biggest obstacle against that while at the helm. Don't need to play in the R100bil league to know that's called hypocracy, not?
 
I just signed off on the porting of my VC contracts to Cell C this week. My primary reasons for leaving VC were network quality and ridiculous pricing (esp. Data). This news does not fill me with joy. On the positive side, I will benefit from efforts to improve Cell C's network quality and I will still benfit from the prices I signed up at. The funny thing is that despite being with VC they were ridiculously more expensive even on the handsets (Samsun Galaxy Note and S2).
 
Frankly Cell C desperately needs to focus on it's customer service. I have dealt with them twice over a period of a year and twice it has resulted in logged complaints and hello peters.

I would happily pay more to get some decent service from the network.
 
kingdong said:
His statement that 'price is not an effective competitive mechanism' indicates the certain death knell of Cell C.

I'm afraid this statement indicates Knott-Craig has already torpedoed the ship before he even takes the helm.

With Cell C recently climbing into bed with the ANC by being their sole communications provider at Manaung and beyond, and the loss of most of their senior management team in the last few months, the future of the company looks pretty bleak to me.

Knott-Craig has never been a champion for the consumer, but rather a faithful servant of unscrupulous shareholders who are out to rob the poorest of the poor country. A leopard cant change it's spots, and I'm certain he wont do anything meaningful for us consumers.

Good bye Cell C.
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sums it up pretty well IMO
 
“You cannot price yourself into the game,” said Knott-Craig
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That's a statement which reeks of incumbent FAIL, especially when applied to Cell C's current target market. He should have stayed retired, clearly he is a relic of the past.
 
jannievanzyl said:
In any case, those commenting here who've successfully built a R100Billion over the last two decades, your views are interesting.

I wish Alan nothing but the best of luck. He's going to need it. :)
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No idea why you always have to be sarcastic or arrogant, but VC/AKC didn't exactly had it difficult to build a R100bn empire:
  1. Vodacom had a jump-start on MTN because it was assured of a license through the Telkom shareholding;
  2. Price-fixing/collusion with the only other player on the field makes life easy and huge profits a given. For a long time costs/rates were identical, to the cent. Do you seriously want us to believe you need a calculator to prove that two complicated business models come up with identical answers? It still amaze me that the bread, fertiliser and steel industries had to pay billions in fines as a result of collusion but VC/MTN got away with it. Friends in high places?
 
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