Telkom has appointed ICT veteran Dr Brian Armstrong to take up the company's senior managing executive role in the enterprise space.
With fixed-line subscriptions on the downturn and geographic number portability about to be introduced, Telkom needs to focus its attention on keeping the corporate customer base in hand.
Last week, the company's rival, Neotel, announced that geographic number portability was on track and ready to roll in the next few months. Industry watchers have questioned whether the number portability for fixed-line will be effective, considering the failure of the mobile version.
However, Neotel will be driving hard for enterprise and large business customers when the porting of numbers becomes available, and Telkom must turn up the competition to hold onto its business clients, with its consumer voice business dwindling.
Telkom also has to face the unbundling of the local loop sometime near the end of this year, which could cap its customer base more than the introduction of mobile.
Armstrong moves to Telkom with an impressive resume, having come from the UK's telecoms powerhouse, BT, where he was the company's VP for the Middle East and Africa regions.
“Armstrong joined BT in March 2003 and was appointed regional VP in December 2003. He has been responsible for formulating and executing BT's regional strategy, as well as ensuring effective service delivery to BT's multinational accounts present in the MEA region,” says Pinky Moholi, Telkom SA's MD.
Armstrong has also been a division director at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, and worked as MD of AST Networks.
“In all, he has 25 years' experience in ICT research and development, telecommunications, technology management, networking services and outsourcing,” says Moholi.
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