NT will cut 1,500 jobs in next 2 years
FEB 09 -
One of the best performing public enterprises (PEs), Nepal Telecom (NT), recently got a new managing director, Anoop Ranjan Bhattarai. Bhattarai, who has spent 32 years at NT, has a huge task ahead—from maintaining NT’s status as the best PE to finding a suitable strategic partner. Ramesh Shrestha from The Kathmandu Post talked to Bhattarai on NT’s 10-year journey as a public limited company and its future plans. Excerpts:
It has been 10 years since NT went public. How do you evaluate these 10 years?
We have witnessed a significant change in NT in the last 10 years as the company was restructured. NT has evolved into a matured institution ready for any competition in the market and regularly catering to the needs of the customers. This has resulted in growth in the number of subscribers as well as income.
NT’s service quality has remained poor. Perhaps, voice quality is NT’s biggest weakness. How do you plan to address this issue?
There used to be a problem of call failure until three weeks ago, forcing customers to dial up to four-five times. This problem has now been resolved. I agree there are complaints such as no call success, call break and disturbance. Generally, users experience these problems in areas where our signal strength is week. In the last few weeks, we have identified such locations where we will be installing 60 base transceiver stations. I believe this will surely reduce the problems.
Two-three telecom companies are planning to enter the GSM segment which would heat up the competition. How do you plan to steer NT in a competitive environment?
NT will give priority to data service as we believe there is a huge scope to grow. There is no doubt that data is a key segment for telecom companies. Currently, we have data services under WiMax, GSM and CDMA categories. We are coming up with two new services—WiFi and Fibre to the Home (FTTH).
We have completed installing equipment in eight core areas of Kathmandu, making available the FTTH service. In the first phase, we will be focusing on core business areas and housing and colony locations. We hope to cover all district headquarters with WiFi within this fiscal year. Data consumption in Kathmandu has increased 60 percent after we improved 3G service. More customers are buying our 3G data packages as they are comparatively cheaper. Data service mainly helps increase average revenue per users. Once our 3G network goes nationwide, we hope to see our revenue going up remarkably.
Prices of voice service have come down significantly in the last five years. Will it go down further?
Voice has already started to become a secondary service for subscribers having access to data as it also enables voice calls through applications like Viber. We think voice service should be free. We recently launched a scheme to CDMA users under which customers paying only Rs 20 a month can make as many as calls they want during night time 10:00 pm to 6:00 am. It is a kind of free voice service and I think, if the same trend continues voice service in a way, will be free service within next two years to customers buying other services.
Where has the plan to bring a strategic partner in NT reached?
The government has intensified the process. We will float an expression of interest within a month to hire a consultant for two tasks—prepare the request for proposal for a strategic partner and carry out NT’s evaluation. To make NT an attractive partner, we will also be restructuring it. Since it will take two years to bring in a partner, we will be launching new services as per the need in 2015 and 2016 with a new network, besides brining NT in a good shape.
Do you mean NT is laying off employees under the restructuring plan?
Yes, the number of employees will come down. We will be launch voluntary retirement schemes and all the departments will be transformed into business units for effective operation. Each unit will be able to carry out marketing and promotional activities itself to increase revenue. As per our restructuring plan, I think we will be able to reduce 1,500 employees in next two years. In a bid to enhance employee performance, we have also started signing performance contract with deputy managing directors and project managers. We are hiring a consultant to evaluate the performance of employees, starting from peon to managing director, and offer incentive under the performance-based incentive system as per our bylaw.
NT has long been planning to diversify its investment, what is happening on this front?
A study to this effect is under way. However, I think we should first focus on our own service areas than thinking beyond. I have a plan to open a company for managed service which can also work on installation and maintenance of telecom service networks of other operators as well. There is also possibility of opening a software company, which can develop local contents for internet users. This will help reduce internet bandwidth costs going abroad. We plan to launch a local networking site which will also contain videos.
Source: The Kathmandu Post
