GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions com­pa­ny TSTT says it ur­gent­ly needs to "re­struc­ture" to re­main com­pet­i­tive.

As such it has writ­ten to its em­ploy­ee rep­re­sen­ta­tive unions invit­ing them to con­sul­ta­tions re­gard­ing a "pro­posed re­fine­ment" of its op­er­at­ing/busi­ness mod­el.

In a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day TSTT CEO Lisa Agard said, “Giv­en our cur­rent chal­lenges, TSTT con­sid­ers that it must now ur­gent­ly re­struc­ture to re­main com­pet­i­tive. We must move to an op­er­at­ing mod­el that is more in line with in­dus­try bench­marks, and which gives us the abil­i­ty to adapt and evolve with the con­stant de­vel­op­ments in tech­nol­o­gy. This is our on­ly op­tion if we are to re­turn to prof­itabil­i­ty.

“Sim­ply put, there is a new nor­mal in our in­dus­try and TSTT con­sid­ers that it has no choice but to adapt to it. There­fore, in keep­ing with the terms of our col­lec­tive agree­ments, the em­ploy­ee rep­re­sen­ta­tive unions have been in­vit­ed to dis­cuss the com­pa­ny’s fu­ture."

She said TSTT looks for­ward to meet­ing with them in the com­ing weeks to see how best they can work to­geth­er to en­sure col­lec­tive suc­cess.

Ac­cord­ing to TSTT, like oth­er com­pa­nies, it has been sig­nif­i­cant­ly im­pact­ed by the eco­nom­ic con­di­tions brought on by the COVID-19.

This, cou­pled with in­creased con­sumer adop­tion of dig­i­tal ap­pli­ca­tions like What­sApp and com­mu­ni­ca­tions plat­forms like Zoom, has seen the steady ero­sion of tra­di­tion­al voice rev­enue, it added.

In T&T, fixed voiced call­ing in terms of min­utes and calls have de­clined by 50 per cent over the past 10 years and mo­bile voice call­ing has de­clined by 20 per cent in the same pe­ri­od ac­cord­ing to the an­nu­al TATT mar­ket re­ports.

In ad­di­tion, the lega­cy costs as­so­ci­at­ed with re­dun­dant tech­nol­o­gy in its ex­ist­ing op­er­at­ing struc­ture, con­tin­ue to have a crip­pling im­pact on TSTT’s busi­ness and its re­sults, the com­pa­ny al­so not­ed.

Dur­ing the past fi­nan­cial year which end­ed on the March 31, 2021, TSTT’s rev­enue fell by TT$453 mil­lion - 18 per cent less than the pri­or year.

This ma­te­r­i­al de­cline was part­ly due to is­sues re­lat­ed to COVID-19 and a com­bi­na­tion of eco­nom­ic and tech­no­log­i­cal fac­tors both unique to the T&T mar­ket as a di­rect re­sult of the glob­al dig­i­tal rev­o­lu­tion in the telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions in­dus­try, TSTT said.

Re­gion­al­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, it added, net­works are un­der pres­sure: in­ter­net traf­fic is grow­ing ex­po­nen­tial­ly, but the price per gi­ga­byte is de­clin­ing al­most as rapid­ly, and the re­sult is a down­ward pres­sure on rev­enue growth and mar­gins.

Fur­ther, TSTT said it has had to fo­cus on ag­gres­sive­ly man­ag­ing its ex­pens­es over the past year as these trends in­ten­si­fied, more so than its com­peti­tors who have glob­al cost-economies of scale.

The com­pa­ny said it al­so in­tro­duced sev­er­al ini­tia­tives, the most sig­nif­i­cant of which was a cost-cut­ting dri­ve that in­clud­ed the con­tain­ment of non-per­son­nel ex­pens­es.

In his re­view of the com­pa­ny’s per­for­mance of the fi­nan­cial year end­ed March 31, 2021, Chair­man Sean Roach said, “Re­gion­al­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, net­works are un­der pres­sure: in­ter­net traf­fic is grow­ing ex­po­nen­tial­ly, the price per gi­ga­byte is de­clin­ing al­most as rapid­ly, and the re­sult is a down­ward pres­sure on rev­enue growth and mar­gins.

“As the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic per­sists and the busi­ness con­tin­ues to evolve in step with rapid tech­no­log­i­cal de­vel­op­ment, the im­pacts will have to be coun­ter­act­ed by even fur­ther cost-con­tain­ment ini­tia­tives in ex­pense cat­e­gories not con­tem­plat­ed in the fi­nan­cial year just end­ed.”

Ac­cord­ing to Roach, TSTT must im­me­di­ate­ly look at the im­ple­men­ta­tion of in­no­v­a­tive fi­nan­cial and tech­no­log­i­cal so­lu­tions to en­able the group to build on the suc­cess­es achieved dur­ing the last fi­nan­cial year.

"TSTT must be­come in­creas­ing­ly ag­ile for us to main­tain a com­pet­i­tive edge in the con­stant­ly chang­ing world of dig­i­tal telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions. Our plans for a more sus­tain­able, com­pet­i­tive, and cus­tomer-fo­cused fu­ture are cur­rent­ly be­ing re­searched and a new strat­e­gy and di­rec­tion is be­ing de­signed for dis­cus­sion with our key stake­hold­ers,” he added.

TSTT said it will en­ter the up­com­ing dis­cus­sions in good faith and with the hope that all par­ties will fo­cus on achiev­ing sus­tain­able rev­enue gen­er­at­ing ini­tia­tives, whilst al­so fo­cus­ing on cut­ting op­er­a­tional ex­pens­es

The com­pa­ny said it is al­so ready to put for­ward what it be­lieves to be a rea­son­able and work­able op­er­at­ing mod­el to best po­si­tion it to sur­vive dur­ing the re­main­ing im­pacts of the pan­dem­ic and the new en­vi­ron­ment of con­tin­u­ous tech­no­log­i­cal change that de­fines the broad­band rev­enue busi­ness mod­el.

"TSTT looks for­ward to en­gag­ing the rep­re­sen­ta­tive unions to find com­mon ground on the way for­ward," it em­pha­sised.