kds
Well-Known Member
Sounds like a wishy-washy marketing speech to me.
Good leadership and a healthy organization
This is an obvious dig at Reuben; he always gave me the impression of being sleazy. What is good leadership? What is a healthy organisation? Do you have a clear and tangible goal here? If you can't measure it how do you know if you have progressed or regressed? I suppose you could start by counting the number of times you get sued per contract awarded.
EBITDA and cash flow improvement
This makes me nervous; most companies will restructure (read retrench) their workforce to improve this, another option is to improve billing / debt collection, and Telkom's favourite is to squeeze their current customers a little bit more - explains the "small" ADSL price increase. Option one will not be politically palatable, option two has very little scope for improvement, I think we have seen option 3 already being used. There are other ways to do this though but they are a lot more difficult and they are really long term solutions for well managed companies, i.e. not Telkom.
Telkom’s mobile business
You have MTN and Vodacom here both with market share, coverage and marketing. Start a price war and they will just follow you, you will lose more money than they will and faster, you have a bad reputation so your name counts for nothing, or more accurately it counts against you. Most of your potential customers are tied into two year contracts so the best you can hope for is a slow consistent uptake. Corporates are not likely to move to you unless they see significant benefits, and those benefits will be matched by Vodacom and MTN all the way, unlike you they have an aversion to losing market share and a culture of competition (although not excessive competition). You could use your contacts at ICASA (you know you own the joint) to pass the handset regulations they have been bullied into shelving, and also pass an interconnect law that will be favourable to you (follow Cell C's suggestion), and force Vodacom / MTN to share their infrastructure with you and Cell C. That will make it easier to get subscribers, they could just pay off the handset and move, and also reduce your competitor’s income and increase yours with an asymmetrical interconnect rate, and you get their coverage without the capital outlay. One thing Vodacom and MTN are not is efficient, once they start losing market share and money they will have to restructure their business (read effective, efficient and retrench), they will also have to cut marketing budgets which will hurt them. You could also paint yourselves as South African and Vodacom as British parasites gorging on poor South Africans, with MTN highlight their billing problems and offer free legal advice and general assistance to those people who want to sue them, highlight it in the media etc and hurt their image. If you play dirty and go for the jugular you have a chance, I don't think you have it in you though. I see another loss maker.
Driving fixed and mobile broadband
You have done such a poor job with this so far; I suppose things can only get better. Your offering is just too expensive and too slow - and that's without the data. You need to look at what you are offering; you can use this to start cutting Vodacom and MTN profit. With no line rental for both ADSL and telephone lines and cheaper call / bandwidth costs you can start pulling revenue away from Vodacom / MTN even though it will not come to you proportionally. But a weaker and under pressure competitor is better for you any way you look at it once you get them off balance, they focus on fighting fires not improving / building their business. Target the low income market for cheap calls and no line rental, take revenue away from Vodacom's / MTN's prepaid cash cow, target middle to high income with cheap ADSL with no line rental, throw in something like free Skype (does not count to your bandwidth and is unshaped) and again take revenue away from the mobile players. Put in WiFi in every office park, townhouse complex, shopping mall and make it run off one account, if I buy WiFi, I can use it anywhere, if I buy ADSL, I have WiFi at the office automatically. Make Vodacom / MTN 3G a non-starter for most people because of your ubiquitous WiFi coverage and dirt cheap costs.
Fixing Multi-Links
Find the best people this company has, bring them to SA as part of your company, close this company down.
Good luck and I look forward to hearing the same thing from you this time next year!
Good leadership and a healthy organization
This is an obvious dig at Reuben; he always gave me the impression of being sleazy. What is good leadership? What is a healthy organisation? Do you have a clear and tangible goal here? If you can't measure it how do you know if you have progressed or regressed? I suppose you could start by counting the number of times you get sued per contract awarded.
EBITDA and cash flow improvement
This makes me nervous; most companies will restructure (read retrench) their workforce to improve this, another option is to improve billing / debt collection, and Telkom's favourite is to squeeze their current customers a little bit more - explains the "small" ADSL price increase. Option one will not be politically palatable, option two has very little scope for improvement, I think we have seen option 3 already being used. There are other ways to do this though but they are a lot more difficult and they are really long term solutions for well managed companies, i.e. not Telkom.
Telkom’s mobile business
You have MTN and Vodacom here both with market share, coverage and marketing. Start a price war and they will just follow you, you will lose more money than they will and faster, you have a bad reputation so your name counts for nothing, or more accurately it counts against you. Most of your potential customers are tied into two year contracts so the best you can hope for is a slow consistent uptake. Corporates are not likely to move to you unless they see significant benefits, and those benefits will be matched by Vodacom and MTN all the way, unlike you they have an aversion to losing market share and a culture of competition (although not excessive competition). You could use your contacts at ICASA (you know you own the joint) to pass the handset regulations they have been bullied into shelving, and also pass an interconnect law that will be favourable to you (follow Cell C's suggestion), and force Vodacom / MTN to share their infrastructure with you and Cell C. That will make it easier to get subscribers, they could just pay off the handset and move, and also reduce your competitor’s income and increase yours with an asymmetrical interconnect rate, and you get their coverage without the capital outlay. One thing Vodacom and MTN are not is efficient, once they start losing market share and money they will have to restructure their business (read effective, efficient and retrench), they will also have to cut marketing budgets which will hurt them. You could also paint yourselves as South African and Vodacom as British parasites gorging on poor South Africans, with MTN highlight their billing problems and offer free legal advice and general assistance to those people who want to sue them, highlight it in the media etc and hurt their image. If you play dirty and go for the jugular you have a chance, I don't think you have it in you though. I see another loss maker.
Driving fixed and mobile broadband
You have done such a poor job with this so far; I suppose things can only get better. Your offering is just too expensive and too slow - and that's without the data. You need to look at what you are offering; you can use this to start cutting Vodacom and MTN profit. With no line rental for both ADSL and telephone lines and cheaper call / bandwidth costs you can start pulling revenue away from Vodacom / MTN even though it will not come to you proportionally. But a weaker and under pressure competitor is better for you any way you look at it once you get them off balance, they focus on fighting fires not improving / building their business. Target the low income market for cheap calls and no line rental, take revenue away from Vodacom's / MTN's prepaid cash cow, target middle to high income with cheap ADSL with no line rental, throw in something like free Skype (does not count to your bandwidth and is unshaped) and again take revenue away from the mobile players. Put in WiFi in every office park, townhouse complex, shopping mall and make it run off one account, if I buy WiFi, I can use it anywhere, if I buy ADSL, I have WiFi at the office automatically. Make Vodacom / MTN 3G a non-starter for most people because of your ubiquitous WiFi coverage and dirt cheap costs.
Fixing Multi-Links
Find the best people this company has, bring them to SA as part of your company, close this company down.
Good luck and I look forward to hearing the same thing from you this time next year!
