New Globe CEO out to reclaim top spot in telco industry
By KAREN FLORES, abs-cbnNEWS.com | 04/03/2009 9:58 AM
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Globe Telecom's newly-appointed President and CEO has only one goal this year: to reclaim its top spot as the country's leading telecommunications firm.
At the sidelines of Globe's annual stockholders' meeting in Makati on Thursday, Ernest Cu said his main target this year is to take Globe back to its dominant status in the mobile service industry after years of lagging behind its rival, Smart Communications Inc.
To achieve this goal, Cu stressed the need to focus on the company's execution skills, saying that Globe should always make sure that it is first in getting things done.
"Globe's weakness is it's slow in execution, that's why it's trumped by competition," he explained.
Last month, Cu was appointed as the new head of Globe Telecom, succeeding Gerardo Ablaza Jr. who returned to Ayala Corp. Globe's management change was part of Ayala Corp.'s major reorganization of key officials to strengthen the trajectory of its core businesses.
Cu joined the Ayala Group after his short stint with Globe competitor, Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT), as executive for a subsidiary that bought into a multi-country business process outsourcing firm, which he shepherded for years.
Globe zoomed ahead in the early years of mobile phone service in the country after it decided to anchor its wireless business on GSM technology, which triggered an industry milestone: the now ubiquitous text messaging service. But typical of Ayala's business strategy of going after a consumer market that spends more than the average Filipino and pays on time, it stuck out with the higher-income end of the market for years.
The company was eventually surpassed by PLDT's mobile arm, Smart Communications, which courted consumers belonging to low-income and middle-income brackets and beating Globe to the draw by being first to introduce the succeeding industry innovations: prepaid services and electronic transfer of phone credits.
As of end-2008, Smart reported a total of 20.9 million subscribers. Globe, on the other hand, came in second at 14.14 million.
For the past years, Globe has also tapped the lower-income market by providing SMS load transfers, overseas Filipino workers packages, and unlimited call and text promos. "Globe is now able to derive from all markets," Cu said.
In addition, Globe is eyeing easier access for its subscribers with a unified shortcode for all of its services. "You can send all registrations to one number (8888)." The company has recently launched its new website, which Cu said would allow consumers to make more convenient transactions through the internet in the coming months.
