‘The biggest threat to satellite TV is good internet’ – Spectranet CEO
Spectranet, a fast growing Nigerian brand with international spirit came on board to promote Internet services in Nigeria especially offer broadband to families and SMEs. The company which was awarded a License from the Nigerian Communications Commission in 2009 had a brand re-launch last year and since then it has clinched several awards. The company CEO, David Venn in this interview highlighted the company’s CSR projects designed to stay in touch with various communities, the awards in the recent time and its service offer to Nigerians to make them have easy access to internet. Excerpts
How do you feel one year after your brand re-launch you are at home with three awards?
We have come from a long way no doubt. One and half years ago, most people have not heard of Spectranet. The team is doing a good job but we have also rolled out networks. We have clinched awards from the Marketing Edge, Beacon of Information Communication and Telecommunication but the recent one is Nigeria Telecoms Award. It is an endorsement that we are doing the right thing in the market and people are happy with the things we are doing. We have a lot more customers now than we had a year ago and the number of consumers using our network is growing daily. The awards are recognition from our industry as top officials of Ministry of Communication and NCC were also present at the award. When you look at the journey, despite the ups and downs of the economy, people still want broadband and I think broadband, internet access is now becoming very much a utility that every home would like to have.
Award is a call for more work, how are you providing more work particularly in the area of customer.
There was a marketing training by us about managing people’s expectations. If you set your expectations to be low and you over achieve it then people may be happy but if you set your expectation high and you just achieve it, people may not be happy because they expect you to achieve more. So, with the awards from the industry people would expect more from Spectranet and we are no more a small company as we have been recognized as the broadband company of the year by three different organizations. In Nigeria, people want the network that works and what delivers what they want. Secondly they want good pricing and value for money. Also, the relationship the customer has with service provider also counts. All the touch points of customer relations come to how the customer perceives the relationship with the service provider. But above all, they want a network that works and we have done a lot of work on the network and we are always upgrading the network including base stations to cater for more capacity in the future as we grow. We have tuned our network as we notice that a lot more people are watching streaming videos which was not the case about 2 years ago in Nigeria. We are also adjusting our network to make sure it runs the best with video and give the best experience and people don’t get unnecessarily delayed in streaming. Again we don’t have congestion like the Gsm operators as we planned early enough and have capacity in the right places. On the pricing we want to make sure the business is profitable and sustainable otherwise we don’t have future. But we want make sure the packages we give is good value for money.
What does that tuning up really means to the customer?
We simply want to stay ahead of the trend and there is no doubt that people use of internet is changing in Nigeria dramatically. The way internet is used now than two years ago is changing. Part of that is much more video and if a network is not tuned properly, there would be challenges. We want to make sure that the streaming of videos work seamlessly. We are closely monitoring what is happening with our customers and how they are using our network and internet and what they are using it for and we try to adjust and invest in technology to be ahead of the game. For instance people are now using Whatsapp to make video calls. In Nigeria people pick up new trends quickly particularly in telecoms. In short period of time most calls will be App-based. This means that consumers will not pay for phone calls.
How then do you want to ensure that your consumer assess your platforms easily?
We are looking ahead of what people will be using in future. We are making sure we are there and we are providing the right services. We are talking to Netflix and others. We are trying to predict what is happening and tune our networks and we are talking to some partners for good relationship to serve the customer well.
You have positioned Spectranet as a family brand, but you have been more on business circle, could you tell me about this?
Spectranet has a unique positioning in Nigeria. We are here to do data and not voice. Our service is targeted at families, SMEs. We have found out that there is a huge market in families and SMEs which are not well addressed who want broadband in their homes for family members to share and for kids to play games. Now SMEs are up to 17 million in Nigeria. There is also overlap between families and SMEs. That is where we face. Our businesses and our partnerships are designed for this market.
You seem to have understood Nigerian market well, what assisted your quick market understanding?
Personally I have worked in many markets like Ghana, Zambia, Pakistan, Bangledesh, Australia, Hong Gong, Indonesia, America and many others and what I have learnt from all these markets is that you need to understand the market. That means you need to understand what consumers want and how they use it and basically how it fits in their lives. If you don’t understand that you have no chance of putting services and products. In such markets as Nigeria, you rely on your team to bring insight but you also need to do a lot of research to understand the trends and how people do things.
How would you compare Nigerian market with some other markets?
Nigerian market is very different. When I was in Zambia people told me that Zambia was Africa’s market for beginners. Ghana was a lot more dynamic with more business, commerce. When I moved to Nigeria I was told that Nigeria was Africa’s market for men. Nigerian market is so dynamic, so fast moving and big market and a wealthy market. I was told that if I get it right here, it could be great. This is unlike smaller markets. In Nigeria, the education level is higher than I have seen in some other markets as Nigerians know what they want. Nigerians are also entrepreneurial and very strong work attitude here. In Nigeria consumers are quite loyal to good services and it is only when you stop providing good services that people look elsewhere. For instance, people want the top brands unlike in Bangladesh where price matters.
What is your capacity to sustain the service offer to your niche customers?
In telecommunication business you don’t need thousands of people to run the business. What you need are the technology and service customer people. We have about 500 staff spread between Lagos, Abuja, Ibadan and Port-Harcourt. We are taking more staff. We are keeping pace with the growth. On the network side, I hear that there is a grave yard of dead companies here as they come on board, launch great new service and after about 6 months the network gets congested. Then customers start looking for alternatives and that network gets empty network and it is not investing and dies. We are determined to be different. We will keep investing and plan for future. We are putting more base stations as we have over 150 now in Lagos and Abuja for capacity growth. On the towers, we make sure we stay ahead on the growth curve and to continuously investing. But it is more difficult with economic environment. With fiber optics we have enormous capacity
As you acknowledged, Nigeria is a dynamic market, but what are those things that fascinate you and what are those challenges that worry you in the market?
In terms of challenges, there is a lot of process to get consent to do anything. It slows things a bit. On the interesting part, the level of brand consciousness is huge. People here like quality brands and the level of education is high. People make informed choices but I am amazed by poor quality of services by mobile operators and they have genuine excuses, such as power etc. The telecommunication sector is well structured and regulated and the regulator has a lot of impact on how the market develops.
What is the difference between 3G and 4G network?
Most people in this country experience internet on mobile phones of 3G. Most people have not used 4G. The challenge is convincing people to try it and it works faster. 4G was designed for data while 3G was designed for voice with data. It is forward of 2G which is only for voice and SMS. As a telecom operator, when you put 3G you have to allocate space for voice and for data. But this has its challenges.