The danger of focussing on business today

I've just come across a video from KPMG's Joe Gallagher - one of the speakers at the recent Total Telecom Finance Summit.

It's over a year old, but spells out some interesting messages, including one that focusing on business today may be to the detriment of business tomorrow, a similar message to that he gave at the Finance Summit when he urged operators to "Be Brave" (see Total Telecom 10 October 2012)


Joe's comments can be applied to all parts of the Telco industry and set me wondering how brave the industry is when it comes to the key issues of network management? We'd like to hear your views for the study we are currently conducting.

Executive Perspectives - View from the #FinanceSummit

At last months Total Telecom Finance Summit a number of speakers were kind enough to share their opinions on a range of finance and related issues. Informative and insightful, this interview is well worth a watch.



Featured speakers:

• Mr Fabrizio Mambrini - CFO, Cell C
• Mr Tom Homer - CEO, Telstra Global
• Mr Patrice Cochelin - Analytical Manager, Telecommunications and Technology Ratings, EMEA, Standard & Poor's
• Mr Andre Sokol - Founder, Akira Partners
• Mr Roland da Silva - Partner, Value Partners
• Mr Amjad Khan - CEO, Bangla Phone Limited

The 2013 Finance Summit will take place in London on the 9 & 10 October 2012. To find our more about how to get involved, email sales@totaltele.com 

3 Key Findings from Day 1 @totaltelecom #FinanceSummit

Yesterday's first Total Telecom Finance Summit saw great turn out of telco executives from across the globe gather to discuss issues ranging from Operator Business Models to Funding and Investment Strategies.

A long days wrapped at gone 6pm with an outstanding predation from Lloyds Banking Group Chief Economist, Trevor Williams. His gripping presentation illustrated clearly by an audience staying to ask questions despite an agenda that had run well over time!

Moderator for the day, Roland da Silva then ably wrapped up with three key themes from the day:

1. Now is critical - Joe Gallagher of KPMG had early in the day urged the operators present to Be Brave, stressing that decision made now will influence the future.

2. Get the basics right - CFO of Vimpelcom, Hank van Dalen had been briefed to offer a futuristic vision, but underlying this was the important message that you must do the basics well.

3. Learn the lessons - many speakers had alluded to the current economic situation, but Roland finished reminding us that we will come out of recession and should take the lessons learned with us for the future.

Day 2 promises to bring more key lessons for those seeking to understand the business of telecoms. 

Some of the speakers insights can be read in the event eBook.

KPMG and Lloyds Bank sponsor the #FinanceSummit

C-ing The Light

It's musical chairs for the CxO's with Luis Alvarez appointment at BT Global Services arguably the biggest news, but we've also seen Mario Rossi named as the new CFO at Swisscom and Telefónica European head José María Álvarez-Pallete promoted to chief operating officer.


There's a common language to the appointments with BT talking of an "important juncture for BT Global Services", Swisscom a "broader push to overhaul the telco's senior management" and  Telefónica  looking to create an organisational structure that would be “stable over time and ready to compete internationally”. Fundamentally this reflects telco's looking to better their current performance, but not just in terms of revenues and profits, but also in terms of financial market perception.

This is a key driver for the operators who are constantly looking to reassure the markets and is an area that will be discussed in the Financial Markets session of the Total Telecom Finance Summit. During this session two leaders, Standard & Poor's and Fitch Ratings will offer a credit ratings perspective of how to keep the market onside.

If this is a discussion that matters to you, then make sure you book your place at the Finance Summit before the 21 September to guarantee the best possible price. With participants already confirmed from operators including AT&T, BT Global Services, Cell C, Colt, du, Easynet, Everything Everywhere, Interoute, Orange, Swisscom, Telecom Italia, Telstra Global, Turk Telecom, Verizon, and Virgin Media, you'll be in excellent company! View the delegate list HERE 

From Russia with Love #FinanceSummit

OK, so we can't promise Mr Bond, but at the Total Telecom Finance Summit on the 10 & 11 October you can meet Henk van Dalen, the CFO of leading Russian operator, VimpelCom.

His keynote on the morning of day 1 provides provides a futuristic vision of the telecom finance and investment landscape in 2013 and beyond, something he's well qualified to comment on considering that in July alone VimpelCom have announced several major and innovative initiatives. These include:

• a global M2M alliance with partners at KPN, NTT Docomo, Rogers, SingTel, Telefonica, and Telstra aimed at increasing their capability to offer better value propositions to their customers in different markets and geographies.
• have won one of four wins LTE licenses in Russia

This type of initiative is illustrative of the type of experiences you will be able to hear about and discuss at the Finance Summit, living up to the strapline of "Best practice finance strategies for global telecoms".

To find out more about the Summit and speakers, visit www.totaltele.com/financesummit

Fishing for Chips

It's a nice problem to have, more demand for your products than you can make, at least that's what you'd think, but as Total Telecom reported yesterday that may not be how Qualcomm is feeling.

CEO Paul Jacobs said yesterday "Chasing supply is our biggest issue," and the stock market responded with shares sliding by 3.5% in afterhours trading.

This hit on the stock market could be exasperated if other chip makers can muscle into the sector, and who would bet against Intel after the XOLO X900 launched in India, powered by an Intel chip.

The conflict between stock market and telecom company performance is one of the discussion areas for the Total Telecom Finance Summit in October. Find out more at www.totaltele.com/financesummit

Stock response: hitting the buffers

Embattled device produced HTC has a new CFO - we reported this on Total Telecom yesterday - but our headline didn't shout at me in quite the same was as that of Business Insider.

"HTC Is Getting Clobbered After Its CFO Unexpectedly Leaves The Company" was the title followed up by a quote from Tom Tang, a vice president at Masterlink Investment Advisory in Taipei "When a company changes its CFO, it often indicates that the company's operations or financials have reached a bottleneck."

This resonated with me as it's one of the themes that will be addressed at the forthcoming Total Telecom Finance Summit in October (tweet with #TTFS12). If this interests you, why not speak to us about how you can get involved or Save the Date to attend: 10 & 11 October, London

www.totaltele.com/financesummit


[Image: ©Fredgoldstein Stock Free Images]

As seen on TV

At the recent World Telecoms Council meeting in June, we rolled out the camera crew from Total TeleVision. They spoke to a number of the participants, including Michael Rocha from our colleagues at Brand Finance - who helped us put together the Brand 500 for the launch issue of Total Telecom Plus.

The clip below is via the Total TeleVision channel on YouTube, but you can also view all the content at www.totaltele.tv