CWs Pilgrim continues to progress

We have promised to keep you abreast of what John Pluthero and his team of re-Energisers are doing at the revitalised Cable & Wireless.

On arriving at C&W The Pilgrim's shocking mantra was "Only sell to profitable customers!", with instructions to the whole business to start shedding those customers who didn’t add solid value to C&W's bottom line.

What he saw clearly in C&W was the need to manage the revenue of each and every customer, and if the customer isn't profitable, they have to come off the books.

More importantly the new management team accepted something fundamental; It's not about the number of broadband subscribers you can boast or the cool new Linux hosting service; running a successful Telco' is about increased profit and improved execution.

And, there is no doubt this is paying off. Cable & Wireless announced half year figures this week and showed a jump in earnings of 29% EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Tax, Deductions and Amortisation), alongside a reduction in turnover of some 10%.

This turnaround has earnt Pilgrim a kick upstairs with the notice that John Pluthero is taking the reigns of global operations with immediate effect, announced at the same time. Former chief of International, Harris Jones, heads back to the pavilion with a reported £4.6m stuffed in his back pocket.

NB: BackChannels ongoing analysis of ISP market share amongst major corporate accounts shows C&W continues to have very low, in fact negligible customer churn in amongst their major accounts, we’ll let you know if this rolls over into international for them.

NextGen Network roll out threatens ISP Major Accounts

BackChannels latest research shows that 77% of Telco' major accounts buy their Internet access from other providers and this rockets to nearly 90% for hosted Internet services such as web hosting, collocation, managed email and DNS services.

It appears that a 'network as a utility' mentality has developed in the purchase of Internet services, and that represents a significant threat to Big Telco's core revenue streams.

Customers see technology migration as an opportunity to tender out, and due to the flexible nature of IP this 'utility' mentality in the acquisition of Internet services is slowly starting to effect customer attitudes to Private IP infrastructure.

As the telecommunications industry progresses towards all IP Next Generation Networks (NGNs) new threats to their position are arising all the time; VoIP, Streaming media, Web 2.0, Software as a Service, Google… All are becoming more & more stable and running over super cheap bandwidth that business now buy like electricity.

So, as providers of private data networks race to transition to IP based infrastructure, they need to have strategy and tactics in place to manage the process.

Over the next few months BackChannel will launch a series of new sales management and business support systems that will help the successful migration process.