This past weekend my fiancé and I hosted
a few friends for dinner for some catching up. As we sat in the kitchen
chatting and making small talk before dinner I got to know 1 of the guests whom
I met for the first time as a down to earth guy, well spoken with good
Christian values. He is a senior manager at 1 of the biggest telecommunication
companies in the country which I will refer to as Company T….?As we had dinner
the conversation led to his area of expertise telecommunications. It is a well
known fact that my fiancé is not fond of his company. Being a well spoken
articulate man he acknowledged that there are service delivery problems and
human nature plays a role in this, i.e. it not uncommon for a service
consultant to say to a client that because they live in a less affluent area
their problem will not be seen to immediately. This is not the policy of the
company and any service consultant making statements like these can be fired.
He then asked her just 1 question: “How well do you love your country?” Not how
much do you love your country?
He followed up this statement by saying
at the end of this evening you will be an ambassador for his company. He
proceeded to explain how on a flight back to Cape Town he stood up to take his
laptop from the baggage compartment overhead and the person sitting behind him
remarked “ You work for company T….? I hate Company T….!
Feeling the eyes of the entire airplane on him he knew he had to say something
and he simply said Company T…. Loves you. During the flight down
to Cape Town he and the “Company T- hater” struck up a conversation and he
proceeded to inform the person of the ins and outs of his company and its
operational procedures. As they disembarked in Cape Town this person walked
away with a whole new perspective of Company T……
Back to our dinner guests - my fiancé
said that she loves our country and wants it to succeed. Our friend informed us
that if his company T…. and Eskom(Electricity supplier) were to fold or get
sabotaged the entire country would come to a standstill. And thus our
“lesson/conversion” started….There are 5 cellphone operators in the country and
some of them claim to be the leader in the field when it comes to
telecommunications and make claims that their networks are the best.
However what these companies don’t tell you in their advertising is that they
are dependent on company T’s infrastructure to continue operating optimally, ie
if I were to make a phonecall from one mobile operator to another the call is
connected from tower A to tower B between the networks and the network charges
us accordingly, however for tower A to connect to tower B a cable has to be
connected between the 2 and this is where Company T comes in. If Company T cuts
off the connection between the towers, mobile operators will not be able to
operate as they claim they do, and they would only have connection in a small
area- this of course will lead to major chaos in the country.
Banks play a major role in any
country-and as to be expected people want access to their funds from the moment
it is deposited into their account – the public does not care about logistics.
Once again the banks rely on company T’s infrastructure to make this possible.
1 of the major banks is company T’s biggest client with a monthly bill in
excess of R300 million and in order to keep this client’s CEO happy, Company T
has dedicated staff 24hours a day to ensure that this bank’s system is up and
running at an optimal level at all times. Internet service providers
offers clients uncapped data on adsl with the promise of quick internet
connectivity and speed - what they fail to tell customers is that they buy
their bandwidth from Company T and as soon as the internet service provider
notice that a particular customer is using a lot of bandwidth they start to
throttle the customers connection to the internet. Should the customer then call
in to complain about the slow internet connection, the service provider will
then simply put the blame on Company T without acknowledging their role.
It cost Company T roughly a R1 billion
each year to lay new cables to ensure that all telecommunication are up and
running at all times - unfortunately external factors like theft and staff
dishonesty and the theft of copper cables by syndicates are major problems.
Government has for years ignored the call to make the ownership of copper a
license requirement. It was only until copper cable theft affected the Gautrain
that government took heed of this call and plans are now afoot that will
require all copper dealers to be licensed to deal in copper. Telecommunication
companies are more prone in using fiber optic cables to negate the theft of
copper. Because work are always ongoing in telecommunication, the general
public would not be able to differential legitimate operators from thieves when
if new cables are being laid down – these syndicates invest millions in trucks
and operate brazenly.
Staff dishonesty is also a problem
within Company T - if a client calls into Company Ta call centre consultant
would ask the client a few basic questions to ascertain the nature of the
problem and to see if the issue can be resolved over the phone. This is done to
save the client money as it could cost the client R780 in call out fees if a
technician is sent out to look at the line to rectify the problem.
Unfortunately some dishonest technicians charge the client on the spot and
pocket the money without issuing a receipt. The correct procedure requires the
technician to capture the job in his logbook and capture the details on Company
T’s system once the work is done. Some clients aggravate this dishonesty when
they ask technicians to do work privately and then offer the technician a sum
of money “under the table” in exchange for the work done.
Unfortunately Company T is government
owned under the leadership of the minister of Telecommunication, the minister
has 25 advisors who advise him/her on various aspect of the business, these
advisors however will not compromise their own interest in the field and would
normally advise the minister with advice that will benefit their own interest
as the minister is government appointed he or she may not have any knowledge of
how to run the business. The idea or feeling is for the government to
privatise Company T. In the past there has been foreign owned companies who
wanted to take over a majority share and invest money for further development -
these companies however would want to have management control. These companies
have no loyalty to the host country and can walk away at anytime, - an example
is telecommunication company AT&T who invested R5 billion in a company and
walked away with R45 billion 5 years later.
We as local people in the street don’t
know what goes on behind the scenes in big companies and we often complain when
things don’t go our way, but when an expert in the field shares inside
information it certainly is an eye opener and we look at our companies with new
respect purely on the basis of what they can do for us.
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