01 Jul 2024

Botswana Telecommunications Corporation (BTC) is looking to transform its business by migrating to digital solutions as part of its transformation strategy.

Mr Anthony Masunga, the group managing director, announced this on Thursday during the presentation of BTC’s financial results for the year ending March this year.

“Going forward, BTC is going to be a completely different orientation but the purpose will not change.

We exist to empower our people to live connected,” Mr Masunga said.

He said digital transformation was a smarter way of delivering service to the market, hence BTC was migrating away from the current business where traditional telecommunication was key.

“The traditional telecommunications industry is under pressure the world over, free Wi-Fi connections, lower prices and use of Internet voice calls.

These are among the reasons which necessitated the group to be creative and be more adaptive,” he said.

He added that the transformation would not be the first for the company, having previously migrated from being a state-owned enterprise before its listing with Botswana Stock Exchange (BSE) as a commercial entity.

He said the processes entailed undergoing cultural change from being an SOE to a commercial entity, adding such included reaching out to customers in a highly competitive telecommunications space.

“We were a parastatal before listing, mindset completely different, not commercially orientated as our competitors, so we had to work very hard on our people to understand that we are new,” he said.

From cultural transformation, he said they had to work on the commercial transformation in terms of how to be more customer-oriented.

“BTC is committed to enhancing customer experience. Where the company falters, we are ready to fix,” he said.

Also, he said their previous transformation led to significant investment in technology and modernising their network.

Furthermore, he said the country, despite having the networks in place, was a bit slow in the digital age in spite of the world being more into e-commerce.

Furthermore, he said BTC, whose shareholders included government at 56 per cent and Batswana or locally owned companies with remaining shares, had to meet their customer expectations.

He said since their listing in 2017, it had given its shareholders P1.035 billion in dividends payouts.

Meanwhile, he said BTC’s execution of its strategy had resulted in solid financial performance for the year which ended on March 31, with overall revenue of P1.436 billion, which was a growth of three per cent compared with the prior year.

“This revenue increase was driven by the growth in fixed voice services and strong demand for mobile data services,” he said. ENDS