Up for the SA cellular challenge
Born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts (USA), he started out as an intern at US West Communications (one of the seven “baby Bells”, which was later bought by Qwest in 2000), and then moved on to consulting telecommunications clients at Coopers & Lybrand in 1992, according to Business Week .
In 1994, he became the head of international operations at Swisscom, moving on to rival Deutsche Telekom in 1999 to become chief of international operations at Deutsche Telekom.
News reports say he was successful in turning Swisscom’s international operations around, something he did at 36.
In November 2002, he was moved to head up Deutsche Telekom USA in New York and became vice-chairman of the T-Mobile USA subsidiary.
Now 45, Hedberg will be taking the reigns over from current Cell C chairman and CEO Talaat Laham, who has been at the helm of the company since it opened for business six years ago. Laham will remain with the company as non-executive chairman.
While Cell C trails MTN and Vodacom in net profit and subscriber number terms, Hedberg says Cell C can take the competition on by upping its focus on customers.
Speaking on Moneyweb Radio, he said: “One of the things that we need to do within Cell C is to drive customer responsiveness and operational efficiency through all levels of our company. We need to make it clearly understood throughout the organisation that it’s the customer who pays our salaries and we need to take very, very good care of the customer.”
Cell C is set to benefit from changes in the South African telecoms landscape, including number portability, which after many delays, is set to happen in September.
“I am looking forward to the market, I think it’s dynamic. There will be a lot of change, certainly with the new regulations being put forward, and I look forward to seizing this opportunity and taking advantage of what I believe will be some significant change and opportunity over the course of the next years,” said Hedberg.
South Africa’s population comprises around 45m people, and with the numbers bandied about by operators regarding the number of users, observations that the market is saturated are becoming more commonplace. [Vodacom recently announcing it had signed up its 20 millionth subscriber, MTN reporting on Tuesday it had just over 10m users in South Africa and Cell C recorded 2,9m for 2005.]
Hedberg, however, is not concerned: “In Central and Eastern Europe and many Western European countries, there is much greater penetration. You need to understand why the customer wants to call, why the customer wants to have maybe two SIM cards. You need to look at different family packages, and I think with the resource capabilities that you have within South Africa, with the positions that the people have there, I am very excited about the opportunity there. And certainly if I benchmark it, it may not be as developed as some countries, but I think the potential is enormous.”
He said South Africans need to be more positive: “First of all, I think oftentimes South Africans tend to be a little bearish about their country. When I look at it from my perspective, having seen many different countries around the world, it is a country, that is very rich in human and natural resources – and I think that could be summed up in one word, “potential”.
“When I look at what has been achieved over the course of the last 12 years, when I look forward to what can be achieved over the course of the next 12 years, I think there is tremendous opportunity, potential, and I think that what has been done is remarkable. I want to try and contribute to pushing forward with Cell C.”
Source: Moneyweb
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