I’m sure you’ve heard someone described as ‘a Jack of all trades’. But what you may not know is that the full figure of speech goes something like this: ‘a Jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one’.
This concept comes to mind when Vivica Group CEO Jacques du Toit discusses the business’ recent restructuring and rebranding as it looks to expand into new markets and new territories. A few months ago, Vox changed its name to Vivica Group – which, by the way, means ‘war fortress’ – as part of a broader strategy to identify and acquire businesses with potential to secure greater market share. Unpacking the journey to this point, Du Toit explains that when the market wasn’t as complex, Vox became a fully vertically integrated telco. “We had the fibre infrastructure business, the internet business, the voice business, the cloud business and the managed IT business all under one umbrella. This approach gave customers a bit of a ‘one stop shop’ for all their IT and telecommunication needs.”
While he’s confident this approach worked well in the past, he believes that modern customers don’t want a ‘Jack of all trades’; they want to work with subject experts who know the ins and outs of their field and who focus all their attention on one area of business. “Today, instead of being a fully vertically integrated business offering a wide range of things, we opted to spin out different products from the broader Vox stable, creating standalone entities that include some established names, as well as various high-growth-potential technology companies.”
These mergers do benefit the customer in the long run, but while the merger is happening, it becomes quite easy for the two businesses to lose sight of what they’re supposed to be doing.
In doing so, Vox has been significantly simplified. “When you come to Vox, you want to talk about internet, voice or email. That’s it,” he continues. “But under the Vivica banner, there are 12 specialised companies – including everything from a renewable energy business to a digital marketing brand.”
This move ties into the consolidation trend that seems to be gaining massive momentum across the telecoms industry, adds Du Toit. “Without a doubt, we’re seeing consolidation happening across all levels. And if you want to be a part of this industry-wide consolidation, you need to simplify your business as much as possible.”
Much of this consolidation and many of the mergers we’re seeing across the market – think the much-debated MTN and Telkom merger and the unification of Vumatel and Dark Fibre Africa – are taking place to drive down costs, notes Du Toit, adding that this is a good thing as long as we manage to maintain a competitive environment. In the case of MTN and Telkom, the verdict is still out around whether the merger, which will effectively create a telecoms duopoly, will have a negative effect on competition.
“These mergers do benefit the customer in the long run, but while the merger is happening, it becomes quite easy for the two businesses to lose sight of what they’re supposed to be doing.” Preoccupied with bringing different systems together and establishing new ways of working, this inward focus can often mean that customer experience suffers. And in a highly competitive market, when everyone is jostling for market share, keeping your customers happy is key.
Customer expectations
Having been in the telecoms industry for over two decades, Du Toit has first-hand experience of how the sector has evolved. Today, if you look at the options available to customers, from 3G all the way through to satellite connectivity, customers are spoilt for choice. As such, he believes that new entrants into the South African market have a tough task ahead of them. “Your value proposition needs to be extremely compelling because you're competing against myriad operators and offerings. So, you’ve got to be strategic and give customers what they want, not what you think they need.”
For example, the service levels of LTE and GSM in outlying towns and in valleys and mountainous areas are horrific, says Du Toit. There are always capacity and coverage issues. In places like this, it’s a viable option to put a satellite down so that these remote areas have dedicated and reliable connectivity. In these places, satellite makes sense. In other areas, fibre is a more appropriate solution, he adds.
Speaking of differing customer expectations, Du Toit highlights that flexibility has become a major draw card since the pandemic. “Customers want the freedom to change their mind, be it around price, contract terms or just being able to move between different product sets. They don’t want to be locked into a long-term contract, especially if new service providers are popping up that can offer them greater value at a better price.”
Unsurprisingly, this drive for flexibility demands that businesses become more agile so that they can keep meeting customer expectations. This is particularly important when you set out to do something and it doesn’t go as you’d hoped, he says. “If you agree on a plan and execute on that plan and it doesn't go the way you wanted it to go, being agile means making another plan so that you can fix it. If something goes wrong or if something changes, don’t just assume it will sort itself out. This is the worst mistake. You need to admit what’s happened and then just rip the plaster off and let the wound heal.”
Over the course of his two decades in the industry, he’s experienced several mergers and acquisitions, name changes and structural changes, so he knows just how important it is to be adaptable, to be agile and to be open to change. “When I started out, I was selling cellphones and that then moved on to voice and then data and now look where we are. But I didn’t see these changes as a negative, I saw them as an opportunity to do things differently and to walk out on the other side a more mature and a more experienced person.”
* This feature was first published in the November edition of ITWeb's Brainstorm magazine.
* Article first published on brainstorm.itweb.co.za
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