Telecommunications

 

Introduction

 

 

So you’re looking back over the last six years in the Internet and Cloud space and can’t fathom that things have changed so dramatically. Capacity pricing dropping by over 90% in a short time. Carriers becoming Providers, Providers becoming Carriers, sprawling activity everywhere. Where do we go to from here? What lies in wait for us?

Before I begin with making sweeping statements about the market place, ideologies and philosophies, perhaps it would be prudent for an introduction. I have a B-Dip S.o.H.K., the hardest Batchelor course on  the planet, and in case you’re wondering; S.o.H.K is simply an acronym for School of Hard Knocks. For my sins I have been in the Internet game for close to 20 years, primarily in the sales cauldron and evidence of that fact would be the countless forecasts made using my crystal ball. Tongue in cheek of course. It was a very turbulent time on the telecommunication space in S.A.

 

 

 

 

Sales targets between 2010 and 2016.

 

I learnt the most about our industry in this period due to the many changes in a short space of time.

 

I have always been involved in the the relatonship aspects, in corporate account management and key account management for the most part spanning organisations from World Online, Tiscali, UUNet, Verizon which became MTN Business, Seacom and then Vodafone Global Enterprise with Vodacom. I subsequently provide wholesale services to Seacom, XDSL, EoH, iConnect and a host of other Service providers in this space. I have seen the industry evolve in all areas, from consumer to strategic accounts, carrier wholesale to global blue chips and have been priveleged to have trodden the specific route, through all these areas within the same broad industry, where others may have stayed more focused. I have learnt a lot from some the most experience executives in the game. From some of my worst experiences, I learned the most, even for those I am greatly thankful in hindsight.

 

I don’t mention all of this to blow smoke up my own “proverbial”, I do it for one reason only, to illustrate that there is some context to some of observations I will be making in my posts as we go, and in order to take advantage of the changes that have been happening, I believe it is vital to contribute and collaborate, because there are opportunities to be had when change abounds. I refer to it as “the turbulent treasure chest”, a term which I gleened from an enigmatic leader, Douglas Reed, founder of DataPro and Vox Telecom, who gave me my first taste of entrereneurship for which I am very grateful. We pick up pearls along the way from both likely and unlikely suspects and situations.

 

“Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so. ~Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See“

 

Things have changes a lot, and I mean in glaring amounts. There is so much opportunity abounding currently. There is one thing you will hear me harp on about on many occasion. Traditional Internet companies are no longer able to provide a level of service and support that will hold up to any bench mark that is worthwile considering. Service is failing and large organisations are by nature simply not able to offer a personalised touch point based business with the levels of excellence that is required… Businesses are seeing that now. I advise a number of large organisations on strategy, and it is not a hard sell to persuade these to move to an established smaller provider that can provide an end to end IP solution, for those who know the OSI model, services from Layer 1 to Layer 7 with a single support contact for all these.

 

 

Pearls of wisdom.

 

Follow me on these posts, and there will be opportunities, if nothing else, to learn more about the changes in the industry, current opportunities and most of all they they inspire some creative thinking to perpetuate and help take advantage of the many opportunities out there currently.