| Danial Norjidi |
TELEKOM Brunei Berhad (TelBru) is a company that is well prepared for the future and, following a transformative five years, has great opportunities going forward.
This was highlighted by David Kay, the outgoing Chief Executive Officer of TelBru who ends his tenure with the telecommunications provider on October 31. In an interview with the Bulletin, Kay spoke on the five years he has spent with TelBru and how the company has transformed and upgraded itself.
Asked what his initial aims were upon first joining TelBru, he said, “To take stock of the situation and to take some time over that.
“You need to assess what it’s like on the ground and take time over that before making any rash decisions or come to rash conclusions,” he said, sharing that the immediate thing to deal with was the leadership.
“There were only three people in the top positions trying to manage a company of this size and complexity, so I knew something had to be done there, and set about addressing that issue.”
He highlighted there was a shortage of people and that there weren’t enough of the right people with the right skills.
“That was the first priority. If you can’t get the top layer right, you haven’t a chance down at the bottom, and I can’t do it on my own. This effort over the last five years is not me, it’s actually the whole company at the end of the day,” he said. “We got leadership in and then we were able to change things more easily. That was the very first thing.”
Another issue at the time was that they had a lot of angry customers, he said. In addition, he said that the network had lacked investment, the staff had lacked training, and the processes weren’t very efficient.
“So I realised there was a people problem at the top. There were no people coming up to take those positions. So there was a people problem, a succession problem, a network problem, a customer problem. All that to be addressed, and not one after the other, you have to deal with all of them at once.”
He shared that he recruited people to head the various functions, particularly on the network and IT, to really take stock of the situation and assess their problems and set about de-risking them.
“One major problem was single points of failure. In a network, that’s a problem if you have a single point of failure, because if it goes down, there’s no network, no service. So we set about addressing those and on skillsets as well.”
He also shared that they went about getting people trained up to take over positions being vacated. TelBru has put great emphasis on investing in continuous training and learning for its people.
“We had to assess the situation and then set about improving it. As we’ve done with Human Resources, IT was the same. Investing in new equipment, or better equipment, both on the technical side and on the IT side, and then starting to get people aligned, the processes set up and people talking to each other and making sure things happen.”
He noted that one big thing was the revitalisation of the company, particularly in Kadai TelBru branches.
“One prime aim was to improve the image of the company by sprucing up the buildings and repairing them,” he said. “Sprucing them up, making customers comfortable going into them and at the same time, changing the brand, making it more prominent and then getting on with it.
“I think the important thing was ‘don’t just sit there, do something’ – trying to get people to fix these problems, and the management we brought in clearly did that, and things have gotten better.
“There were a lot of problems here, a lot of issues here and we addressed them, and now we’ve got a company that’s well prepared for the future,” he highlighted.
He noted that when he first came in, introducing new products and services wasn’t much of an option. “But now, for the last year or two we’ve been in a position where we can start thinking about launching new products and services, because the network is there. Now the fibre network is there; we’ve got a good quality network now,” he affirmed.
On TelBru’s current standing compared to when he first started there, he shared, “Consultants were coming in to help out on the training. They’d come in every eight to 12 weeks and they said, ‘I can’t believe what’s going on in this company, it’s changing so fast’. They’d never seen anything like it.
“We used to measure the progress by service, etc and various criteria. The change was significant. We didn’t realise it so much at the time, but looking back now, it’s like night and day.
“That’s why we’re here – to serve our customers. Everything is focussed towards our customers,” he said. “I know that people have seen magnificent change. People who get on fibre and can get the service and use it regularly talk very well of us, that’s for sure.”
He shared that bringing in new people has brought new energy, and also encouraged people who’ve been at the company a little longer to improve themselves further. “So it’s actually provided a stimulus to the whole organisation, the new energy, not only doing things faster and coming up with new ideas, but actually the way they present themselves, as a result of the training that they’ve had within this company.”
Speaking on the personal experience he has had with TelBru, he said, “I think this has probably been one of the most dramatic transformations I’ve been in, and therefore one of the most rewarding and valuable experiences that I’ve had.
“I’ve been through this sort of transformation, though not to the extent we have here, and it takes time for change to sink in, but you stick at it. You get the right people and you stick at it. You do what you can do, and you just continue to believe.”
Asked for his thoughts on the future of TelBru, he said, “I think there’s great opportunity now with the network there, endless opportunities. You’ll see more TV coming over the Internet, as we do already. You’ll see that more pervasive going forward.
“Internet of Things (IoT) is taking hold in other countries. It will come here; we already have a partial network here for IoT. Once people start seeing the benefits of that, it will take off.
“I think that the demand for data and the demand for information and speed will be there and we’ll be able to provide it, because we can provide the fastest speeds.”
Kay also expressed his thanks to the Board of Directors of TelBru. “The board certainly has given us room to manage the company in the way it should be managed, and it’s given us strong support in setting out the direction of the company and supporting management as it implemented that strategy, and I think that has been a major part of the success.”
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