Beyond 8ta

jes said:
What should Telkom's focus be in the next six months?
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Sit back, relax, and build mansions on the beach for executives - because why worry? The government will just take taxpayer money to "subsidize" them, just like it does for every other failed state-owned organization (Eskom, SAA etc.)
 
The only way for Telkom to make the turn around is to improve service delivery. All the CEO/CTO/CFO/UFO's first serving their customers then themselves. If you have happy customers you have paying customers. The best change starts from the bottom.

Unfortunately we know that this will never happen. TIA
 
jes said:
What should Telkom's focus be in the next six months?
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Cut costs, spend the bare minimum on capex like 8ta, focus on dividends to shareholders.
That is what they will do.

What they should do:

1. Fr.. ... ...
2. LL. .. .. ..
3. Cus..... ... ....
4. Etc ...
5. Etc ....

Read my signature for further evidence to the fact that our expectations of the behemoth Telkom is simply unrealistic.
They cannot even install 10Mb at our local exchange and it has been there for decades and has Telkom vans coming and going from it all day. Marketing and BS to milk us for more money like 8ta. 8ta is Telkom's admission that they failed in the fixed line market and cut their own throats as a result of all the things they should and could have done to improve their service over the last decade or more thus preventing customers from leaving them in droves. People don't forget easily.

After saying all that, I hope 8ta is successful in an ongoing effort to bring competition into the mobile space.
 
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jes said:
Beyond 8ta

What should Telkom's focus be in the next six months?
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Telkom's focus should be on retaining existing customers, by offering REAL value, good customer service and good support.

Telkom has had everything going for it in the last 15 years:
  • an extensive national network paid for by tax-payers over the last 30+ years
  • it's 50% stake in the cash-cow Vodacom (not anymore, but they received a huge payout when selling their stake)
  • monopoly on the all important fixed line last mile local loop (soon to end, if/when LLU finally becomes a reality)
  • monopoly on national long-haul fiber routes (no-longer, since the last 3-4 years)
  • monopoly on international connectivity through SAT3 (no longer, since NeoHell, SEACOM, EASSy, and soon-to-be WACS et al)
  • government backing through protectionism, poor regulations, political interference, and a very long delay with regards to liberalising the telecoms market

Despite all the above, they have still managed to screw it up royally.

They need to take a short term hit by dropping prices on ADSL, or drastically improving speeds, penetration and rollouts. When LTE finally becomes a reality with speeds of 100mbps+ Telkom are gonna see their subscriber base eroding away very fast. Cell C have already started the mud-slide that will see the end of Telkom.

Cell C is just the latest company to pose a great threat to Telkom. They've shown real innovation, and that they mean business. HSPA+, refarming of the 900mhz band, great marketing campaign backed with great service and support, rebranding (Telkom desperately need to rebrand themselves), selling off their base stations and sites to American Tower Corp in order to focus on what they do best, industry-leading speeds and prices, etc

If only Telkom could take a leaf out of Cell C's book.
 
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The rot starts at the top. So until such time as the top is changed nothing good may be expected here.
 
Geez that's a long article. I just scrolled down to the last paragraph to read the conclusion, and it tells me enough to make me not want to read the rest. I'm curious to know how much Telkom's gonna profit from 8ta, if at all. They're already headed for a cliff, and 8ta may just be what what sends them to their doom. I commend 8ta's pricing model but one has to question the amount of planning they did before they launched the product. There were too many issues with 8ta when I went to buy my sim a few weeks ago. I hope they've sorted the porting problem out already, coz I really want to cash in on all the calls I've been getting to my CellC sim lately.
 
Telkom were on the right track with cable TV. A converged cellphone, TV, fixed line and internet was the way to go.
 
Speaking of eta: That new propaganda news paper called New Age....guess what their headline business article was about on launch.
 
Hmmm, I went back and found this.....

This reminds me of a post from an ex-forumite that was deleted earlier this year - but I saved it for posterity. Looks like some of the chickens are coming home to roost. Quoted as posted originally:

I hope the bloody Neanderthal idiots sitting in their Ivory Towers with their smart offices and fancy cars are taking note of the report that MWEB have signed around 70 000 uncapped customers with their latest product proposals in the last few months alone.

But wait, they don't read the newspapers do they? Their secretaries and PA's do that and shield them from the reality of what is REALLY happening in the world around them. Ahhhh, the pampered life of being in top management... sticking your head further up your arse and wallowing in your own schit.

"If I can ignore it for another year then I can retire and the problem is no longer mine" - what a lovely attitude!

Catch a WAKE UP, Telkom ignoramus, you are losing serious market share and even the "moms and pops" are starting to walk away.

"Ahh, but Telkom Mobile will save us!".... WHAT???? TM is a gamble, and a huge one at that, maybe even a bigger gamble than Telkom Media was! You have a massive copper last mile and an excellent backbone infrastructure and a huge untapped ADSL market, with thousands of orders for ADSL waiting for you... does something not register in that unused brain of yours?

Must we tell you, Telkom Top Management, that BROADBAND is your future, whether via ADSL or Fibre????

Surely all those consultants that cost you hundreds of millions of rands must have told you that as well?

Here's my message to Telkom's Top Management:
1. Sort out your backhaul shortcomings.
2. Do preventative (not restorative) maintenance on your copper network. It's your biggest competitive advantage; so look after it!!!
3. Minimise the number of products available as you are confusing your customers (as much as yourself).
4. Offer better value products.
5. Sort out your Call Centres; weed out the idiots and make the remaining agents full time staff so that they can feel that they are part of your company.
6. Sell Multilinks. NOW. Even if it is for R1, get rid of the albatross.
7. Fire all employees tainted by corruption. Charge them criminally. Your customers will respect you more, not less, if you are seen to be taking decisive action.
8. Employ the best person for the job; chasing artificial targets by pushing folks into jobs that they cannot do is detrimental to you, your customers and the employees themselves.
9. Empower your provincial teams so that they can get some local pride going instead of them all reporting to a faceless Head Office person that they never meet or see.
10. Stop holding meetings to arrange more meetings to form committees that will form sub-committees who will set up task teams, whose proposals will be ignored anyway. You are the Top Management team, it's what you are being paid for, DO IT YOURSELF!!!
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