This report covers performance period of last six months from July 2018 to December 2018.
The Six-Month performance report has been reviewed and validated by Ethio telecom management and Board of Directors. During the review- strengths, limitations and performance gaps along with possible solutions and actions have been identified and owners established for execution.
The leadership has been engaged in change management, ensuring business continuity and resolving many backlog issues which have been lingering for long time due to lack of timely decisions, foreign currency shortage and poor partnership management.
In the beginning of this budget year, the Board of Directors positioned the company at a risk considering the accumulated internal and external challenges critically impacting its business continuity. Now, after employing various interventions, the Board of Directors, while reviewing the Six-Month Performance concluded that the company is in a sound and stable position.
The major interventions which enabled the company to stabilize- the shift in way of doing business, resolving many backlog issues, improving partnership management, structural changes, empowering the management to make timely decisions, creating cooperative work climate and being more customer centric apart from various other initiatives.
The change has covered all the pillars of the company. Among the many affected elements are – structure change to realize efficiency, focus, flexibility and ensure customer and business responsiveness, leadership capacity building and empowerment, staff capacity building, work environment, culture improvement, Service quality and provisioning, drastic tariff revision, Time to market /TTM/ improvement, partnership management, international business, risk, security and fraud management, process improvement, property administration and resource utilization.
Foreign currency challenge has been tamed not affect service payments and other operations, particularly, vendors’ and suppliers’ payments have been effected resulting partners’ attitude change and willingness to engage with Ethio telecom. Following tariff discounts, ranging on average from 40% to 50%, interventions have been taken to lessen any possible impact on revenue like providing new products and services, improving service qualities and deliveries, cost optimization and foreign currency generating initiatives and productivity improvement activities. Total customer base has reached 41.1M which is 91.5% achievement from the target (44.91M).
Mobile voice subscribers are 39.54 M, Data and Internet (Data & internet Only)\ 426K, Fixed Services 1.14M. Data and internet users are 19.49M. Telecom density reached 43%.
Total revenue earned in the last 6 months is 16.71 B ETB which is 80% of the target (20.86) for the period. Mobile revenue share accounted for 63%, data and internet 28.7% and followed by International business 5.5%.
Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization /EBITDA/ registered for the period is 11.8B ETB which is 91% of the target (13 B ETB). During the period 4B ETB Tax and 3B ETB Dividend payment is effected to the government. Many interventions such as minor network expansion, optimization, resource reshuffling, relocation, parameter adjustment have been made to improve quality of services in the last six months. Accordingly, national Mobile network availability rate achieved 91.33% (Addis Ababa: 98.49% and regions: 88.47%), Call drop rate registered 0.57%, and Internet network availability rate 97.12%. From service delivery perspective, fixed service provisioning within 3 days’ performance was 48% while maintenance on the same parameter was 86.5%. Total permanent staff number 15,070 of which 72% are males and 28% females. With respect to human capacity development, competency-based training programs have been developed and delivered for staffs and management. In an effort to minimize vendor and consultant dependency, key areas have been identified and appropriate expert development solutions designed.
Fiber and copper cable vandalism, telecom fraud, commercial power interruption and Skill limitation in some domains were among the main challenges the company has faced during the last six months.
Conclusion
Ethio telecom has achieved encouraging results as it has been undergoing many changes while ensuring business continuity and resolving backlog issues in the last six months. The company has effectively moved from risk status to operation stability and business growth through the alignment of change management endeavors with the company operations. There have been many interventions to prepare the staff and management for the upcoming change in market structure thereby nurturing competitive mindset and work discipline. Leadership capacity building and empowerment, change management, revenue generation and cost optimization, image building, property administration, prudent resource utilization activities in the last six months are commendable interventions that need to be scaled up.
The past six-month performance can be taken as an assurance for the fact that Customer expectation can be met through proper employee engagement, nurturing belongingness and boosting employee productivity. Accordingly, working together, with employee and management alignment, by maintaining the change momentum, strengthening operational excellence efforts, and closing gaps observed, it is imperative that the annual objectives can be possibly met.
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