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Bogota’s Broken Telephone!
The new Colombian capital telephone company’s strategic associate will take total control, which will lead to an increase of the service fee and to a massive workers dismissal. 60 teachers have been already fired from two of the company’s schools. (Photo H.D./Seinforma)
The mayor of Bogota and the city’s telephone company’s shareholders are probably on tenterhooks for having approved such historic decision that will foster unemployment and rise the cost of living.
***
07/15/09
By Catalina Ruiz Parra/ Seinforma Canada Correspondent
Bogota.- The Assembly of Shareholders of the Company of Telephones of Bogota (ETB) carried out past March, 27, in which the search for a strategic associate was approved, leaves two main questions. Firstly, the city, by supporting this decision, is adopting a careless or an amnesic attitude by ‘forgetting’ that the ETB contributed with US$100 millions last year for social and economic investment? And secondly, why do the shareholders say that the sale of a big percentage of the company is the only solution?
It is evident that the situation ETB is going through, in which the threatens of the competence and the unstoppable technological developments do not give them a break, it is the appropriate for them to update their structure and the strategies to enter the business in a ravenous way and get to stand opposite Telmex and Telefonica, face to face, two global monsters on the telecommunication business.
The means to achieve it is not to be discussed. With no doubts, the ETB requires enough money to achieve it; however, its privatization could have been avoided with the search of one or several financial associates, with experience in telecommunications, who might provide the company, on the one hand, with high economic resources, and on the other hand, fresh strategies and knowledge to ensure their future.
Strategies and knowledge like the ones in which Telmex and Telefonica are betting and investing two times more: the optical fiber, wireless internet and mobile telephony. Today, the ETB has not got the economic means to do it, so it continues using ADSL technology (lines of copper for broadband in internet). Also, develop products of higher value added like IPTV (television by the protocol of Internet), and, besides, to strengthen the commercial proposal and the proposal of prices of integration of products and services, known as ‘triple play’, which includes telephony, television and Internet to consolidate it in Bogota and Cundinamarca.
Likewise, the financial associate would bet, logically, on the insertion of high economic resources, for the competence in the telecommunication business does not give a break and is fuming. Some analysts consider that the competence will become much stronger in the next months and will not stop to keep on investing because, according to researches on National Planning, the investments in telecommunications for this year are going to approach US$1,800 millions. And in addition, the investment resources of its rivals are really high, whilst the ETB has invested in the last three years US$380 millions, and maintaining that pace is complicated.
Despite these, many people did not want to accept that a financial associate would allow the ETB to have access to sources of financing to capitalize its business plan, without it losing the operative control over it and, same as the strategic associate, it would have the capacity of creating competitive advantages, of setting in motion its contacts and of reinforcing the strategic posturing through the access to new markets and incorporation of technology; but given that the decision has been made already and there is going to be a strategic associate not for long, but forever, it will take control of the company, which will lead to a service fee increase and to a massive workers dismissal.
An increase on the fairs because the ETB, by not belonging predominantly to the District anymore (more interested in the service delivery than in the cost of it), will have to divide the profits from the fairs with its strategic associate, who will want to earn huge amounts no matter the percentage of increase conferred to the service fee.
And as if that were not enough, thousands of workers are going to lose their jobs, fulfilling the fundamental characteristics of the cross-border companies that work in the country: the violation to the job security and the social equity. These, because the strategic associate, instead of caring for the workers’ wellbeing, he or she is strictly interested in his/her personal profitability and usefulness, reducing the cost of work and facilities. In fact, since the moment in which the search for the ‘right’ strategic associate until mid may was confirmed, executives have given an end to the contract of more than 60 teachers from the schools Alvaro Camargo de la Torre and Tomás Alba Edison, which are part of the ETB.
Even though the ETB is going through an excellent fiscal year (as it has more than two million subscribers, it is the main supplier of broadband in the country with 430,000 users, its actives sum about US$2,380 millions, it invoices US$714 million a year and got a US$97 million revenue in 2008), its numbers are not enough to deal with and win the struggle against its big rivals, Telefonica and Telmex, two real giants on the telecommunication business that have more than 200 million users around the globe. It is clear: The ETB needs investment, but the linking of a strategic associate is not the ideal solution.
The decision has been made and there will not be any way to stop the sale and the privatization of a company that generates in the whole country over three thousand jobs. A few people’s smartness has exceeded the interests of over 7 million inhabitants. In this moment, Samuel Moreno - the current mayor of Bogota - and the ETB shareholders are probably on tenterhooks for having approved that historic decision that will foster unemployment and rise the cost of living, and that it will, mainly, contribute on the loss of one of the most productive companies of the Colombian capital created 125 years ago.
By Catalina Ruiz Parra/ Seinforma Canada Correspondent
Bogota.- The Assembly of Shareholders of the Company of Telephones of Bogota (ETB) carried out past March, 27, in which the search for a strategic associate was approved, leaves two main questions. Firstly, the city, by supporting this decision, is adopting a careless or an amnesic attitude by ‘forgetting’ that the ETB contributed with US$100 millions last year for social and economic investment? And secondly, why do the shareholders say that the sale of a big percentage of the company is the only solution?
It is evident that the situation ETB is going through, in which the threatens of the competence and the unstoppable technological developments do not give them a break, it is the appropriate for them to update their structure and the strategies to enter the business in a ravenous way and get to stand opposite Telmex and Telefonica, face to face, two global monsters on the telecommunication business.
The means to achieve it is not to be discussed. With no doubts, the ETB requires enough money to achieve it; however, its privatization could have been avoided with the search of one or several financial associates, with experience in telecommunications, who might provide the company, on the one hand, with high economic resources, and on the other hand, fresh strategies and knowledge to ensure their future.
Strategies and knowledge like the ones in which Telmex and Telefonica are betting and investing two times more: the optical fiber, wireless internet and mobile telephony. Today, the ETB has not got the economic means to do it, so it continues using ADSL technology (lines of copper for broadband in internet). Also, develop products of higher value added like IPTV (television by the protocol of Internet), and, besides, to strengthen the commercial proposal and the proposal of prices of integration of products and services, known as ‘triple play’, which includes telephony, television and Internet to consolidate it in Bogota and Cundinamarca.
Likewise, the financial associate would bet, logically, on the insertion of high economic resources, for the competence in the telecommunication business does not give a break and is fuming. Some analysts consider that the competence will become much stronger in the next months and will not stop to keep on investing because, according to researches on National Planning, the investments in telecommunications for this year are going to approach US$1,800 millions. And in addition, the investment resources of its rivals are really high, whilst the ETB has invested in the last three years US$380 millions, and maintaining that pace is complicated.
Despite these, many people did not want to accept that a financial associate would allow the ETB to have access to sources of financing to capitalize its business plan, without it losing the operative control over it and, same as the strategic associate, it would have the capacity of creating competitive advantages, of setting in motion its contacts and of reinforcing the strategic posturing through the access to new markets and incorporation of technology; but given that the decision has been made already and there is going to be a strategic associate not for long, but forever, it will take control of the company, which will lead to a service fee increase and to a massive workers dismissal.
An increase on the fairs because the ETB, by not belonging predominantly to the District anymore (more interested in the service delivery than in the cost of it), will have to divide the profits from the fairs with its strategic associate, who will want to earn huge amounts no matter the percentage of increase conferred to the service fee.
And as if that were not enough, thousands of workers are going to lose their jobs, fulfilling the fundamental characteristics of the cross-border companies that work in the country: the violation to the job security and the social equity. These, because the strategic associate, instead of caring for the workers’ wellbeing, he or she is strictly interested in his/her personal profitability and usefulness, reducing the cost of work and facilities. In fact, since the moment in which the search for the ‘right’ strategic associate until mid may was confirmed, executives have given an end to the contract of more than 60 teachers from the schools Alvaro Camargo de la Torre and Tomás Alba Edison, which are part of the ETB.
Even though the ETB is going through an excellent fiscal year (as it has more than two million subscribers, it is the main supplier of broadband in the country with 430,000 users, its actives sum about US$2,380 millions, it invoices US$714 million a year and got a US$97 million revenue in 2008), its numbers are not enough to deal with and win the struggle against its big rivals, Telefonica and Telmex, two real giants on the telecommunication business that have more than 200 million users around the globe. It is clear: The ETB needs investment, but the linking of a strategic associate is not the ideal solution.
The decision has been made and there will not be any way to stop the sale and the privatization of a company that generates in the whole country over three thousand jobs. A few people’s smartness has exceeded the interests of over 7 million inhabitants. In this moment, Samuel Moreno - the current mayor of Bogota - and the ETB shareholders are probably on tenterhooks for having approved that historic decision that will foster unemployment and rise the cost of living, and that it will, mainly, contribute on the loss of one of the most productive companies of the Colombian capital created 125 years ago.
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