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Telecom Corporation of New Zealand (Telecom) was formed in 1987 out of the
telecommincations division of the New Zealand Post Office, a government
department. Since its privatization in 1990, Telecoms business has changed from
simple telephony in New Zealand to complex communications throughout
Australasia. It is New Zealands largest telecommunications service provider,
and touches almost every New Zealander through a wide array of products and
services. On March 31, 2008, its business was operationally separated in line
with amendments to the Telecommunication Act. As a result, Telecom is now made
up of five customer facing businesses: Chorus, Telecom Wholesale &
International, Telecom Retail, Gen-i and AAPT. Alan Gourdie, CEO retail, Telecom
New Zealand (Telecom) was in India recently to inaugurate Tech Mahindras Center
of Excellence (COE) at Hinjewadi, Pune. On this occasion, Dataquest took the
opportunity to chat with him on the companys plans for the telecom sector and
for New Zealanders. Excerpts
You stepped into the career waters as a research and development scientist
and later moved on to brand management and finally took over the reins of
Telecom as its CEO. How has your expertise helped you in gaining foresight as
the leader?
I would describe my work experience as very rich and it has played a
wonderful role in preparing me for my current position, which is full of
challenges as I have to churn new and good business. My expertise in building
equity and brands for the last twenty years helps me to understand consumer
needs, etc, which are important for any business to progress. This was the key
reason for Telecom to choose me for this role.
What is the nature of your engagement with Tech Mahindra? What is the
nature of work that you plan to outsource to India?
Our relationship with Tech Mahindra is not new but has been the result of a
long-lasting relationship based on trust, commitment, and best practices. This
COE is an effort to cement our relationship further and also exchange our best
practices. Tech Mahindra is a global systems integrator and business
transformation consultancy organization focused on the communications industry.
We are building a core IT team that will run a number of our most important
systems like CRM systems, IVR systems, billing system, etc, which would lead to
an online environment. This new team will then be integrated into our business
which is being looked after by Shane Ohlin, CIO retail, Telecom New Zealand and
Ralph Brayham, general manager Internet, Telecom New Zealand.
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| Alan Gourdie, CEO retail,
Telecom New Zealand (Telecom) |
We already have 200 onshore and offshore sites in India and Auckland. The
current agreement has successfully completed the building stages and now it is
in the final stages of the program. The main challenge here lies in
commercialization and operationalization of our programs and that is why we are
here to work out things. The most important plus point of this engagement is
that Tech Mahindra will contribute its best practices to make the deal more
efficient. With its proven quality to deliver critical software solutions on
target, Tech Mahindra has proved favorable for it.
Any best practices that would be the focus of this partnership?
Tech Mahindra, with its learning of intellectual properties, best practices,
and ideas would help us to leverage on our client base. This new COE would bring
in services and intellectual properties to New Zealand that would help us build
a legacy. It would help us to offer fast mobile network. In other words, it
would help us turn a new leaf in the telecom segment.
What is the current consumer trend and how do you intend to leverage on
it?
We are a customer centric organization and deeply depend on sophisticated
marketing capability to build products rather than follow rule of the heart.
This helps us stay a step ahead of our competitors and build brands. This is
also where my expertise in brand building comes into the picture. Our
technologies are focused on how we can offer our customers the latest and the
best as consumers demand simplicity and price certainty. Customers require that
the technology they use is effortless and help them to check their email or chat
or check their Facebook accounts or send a text message, etc. The list is
endless, but the end note is that all these methods of communication should be
made easy. This is a key insight that we have gained into the consumer trend
that holds new promises for us.
What are your views on 3G and increase of ARPUs?
We are already operating in the 3G space that we call four 3G bandwidth and it
offers various services like the mapping service, etc. Regarding increasing
ARPUs, we intend to tap on high-end customers to convince them that a mobile
phone offers much more services than their computer that is probably linked to
the Internet through a cable.
How have regulatory laws in New Zealand affected your business. Can the
affect be termed as positive or negative?
The regulatory laws in New Zealand have left a positive imprint on the industry.
A lot of competition has been infused into the market over the offering of
switching capacity. In other words there is a lot of exchange. According to
regulations, a company must offer telecom products to anybody desirous of using
an equipment. Chorus is an operationally separate business unit managing
Telecoms local access network in New Zealand.
With these laws in picture and our partnership with Tech Mahindra in focus
will help us tap the next generation technology market. It will also help us to
maintain our sheer. This partnership will help us to foray aggressively into the
competitive space with new products.
Shilpa Shanbhag
shilpas@cybermedia.co.in
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