{"id":41715,"date":"2012-01-21T00:58:30","date_gmt":"2012-01-20T22:58:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=41715"},"modified":"2012-01-21T11:00:26","modified_gmt":"2012-01-21T09:00:26","slug":"alan-knott-craigs-plan-for-cell-c","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/business\/41715-alan-knott-craigs-plan-for-cell-c.html","title":{"rendered":"Alan Knott-Craig\u2019s plan for Cell C"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cell C\u2019s<\/a> newly appointed CEO, Alan Knott-Craig<\/a> (59) has indicated that social networks will be a new avenue of interest for the mobile operator.<\/p>\n

The former head honcho of Vodacom says he is hoping to refocus the company and exploit all areas of growth by taking it back to basics and re-energising staff members.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are critical things that need to be addressed and I don\u2019t think that Cell C has gotten them right in the past ten years,\u201d said Knott-Craig.<\/p>\n

These include improving the company\u2019s distribution channels and competitive pricing.<\/p>\n

Knott-Craig, whose son\u00a0 (by the same name) heads up popular social networking channel, MXit<\/a>, says that he doesn\u2019t foresee any direct relation between Cell C and MXit as yet but, believes that taking a dive in the popular scene will help the company \u201cget ahead\u201d and that all networks will have to get more \u00a0\u201csocial network savvy\u201d.<\/p>\n

Knott-Craig has been out of the telco space for the past three and a half years since leaving Vodacom. He had a restraint of trade, but this will lapse in February before he assumes office on April 1.\u00a0 The chief executive says he is hoping to make a contribution to the network whilst also picking up where his predecessor Lars Reichelt<\/a> left off.<\/p>\n

\u201cLars did a great job in the company, number one, and I think he really put it on the map, at least data wise\u2026 This is a numbers game and we need to increase our market share\u2026I\u2019m not sure how long it will take, but we will do well,\u201d said Knott-Craig.<\/p>\n

Cell C chairman and acting CEO Simon Duffy<\/a> believes that Knott-Craig is the perfect man for the job as his \u201cexperience and expertise are unrivalled in the country\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou look at his achievements, they are remarkable. He took Vodacom<\/a> from nowhere to 25 million customers and he was successful before that at Telkom<\/a> and he turned Vodacom into a very formidable operation.\u201d.<\/p>\n

Duffy says he is delighted by Knott-Craig\u2019s appointment following a lengthy six month search to find a CEO, both locally and internationally. Knott-Craig is Cell C\u2019s first South African CEO the fifth to take the helm.<\/p>\n

Following Reichelt\u2019s resignation from Cell C, last year, several calls were made for the company to appoint a BEE candidate as CEO. Duffy says the company did consider local black candidates for the role, but \u201cKnott-Craig was the best qualified candidate\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m hoping at some point or other that we will appoint a BEE candidate CEO of Cell C \u2013 not from the outside, but from the inside and that\u2019s what we hope to do,\u201d said Duffy.<\/p>\n

Source: Moneyweb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Social networks will be a new avenue of interest for the mobile operator<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":69,"featured_media":41681,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[681,355,35,41],"class_list":["post-41715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-alan-knott-craig","tag-cell-c","tag-headline","tag-vodacom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41715"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/69"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41715"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41817,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41715\/revisions\/41817"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}