337 lines
14 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
337 lines
14 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
finance
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newsbysector
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mediatechnologyandtelecoms
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8100480
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-----
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# Vodafone makes a connection in Turkey
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## Serpil Timuray tells Rupert Neate that the mobile phone giant now
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understands its customers in the country
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6:49PM GMT 31 Oct 2010
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[Comments][1]
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"Disaster". That's how Vodafone's chief executive described the company's
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Turkish business last year. Now Turkey is Vodafone's fastest growing country -
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a turnaround credited to one woman and the most bizarre of superheroes.
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![Serpil Timuray, chief executive of Vodafone Turkey][2]
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Serpil Timuray, chief executive of Vodafone Turkey
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"He's called 'the red' and he comes and saves customers from difficult
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situations," says Serpil Timuray, chief executive of Vodafone Turkey, of the
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company's advertising star - named after Vodafone's corporate colour. "The
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customer starts calling for 'the red' - he is a hero."
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The advertising campaign, which features 'the red' saving customers stranded
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without mobile reception and even intervenes in tricky break-up dates, has
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proved phenomenally popular in Turkey, with playgrounds full of kids acting
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out scenes from the commercials.
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"People have been creating their own videos of 'the red'. They are all over
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the internet. It's gone viral," says Timuray, who can barely contain her
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delight as she reels through clip after clip of 'the red's' antics. "I turned
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on the TV one day and a very famous comedy sketch show [similar to The Fast
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Show] had a sketch about 'the red'."
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It is all very different from the scene that greeted Timuray when she joined
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Vodafone in January 2009. "The brand was a negative," she says, because it was
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seen as aloof and out of tune with Turkey.
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Timuray says Turkish consumers were "hugely excited" when Vodafone bought
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local operator Telsim for $4.55bn (£2.9bn) in December 2005 because they
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thought the mobile giant's global brand would translate into better service.
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However, a chronic lack of investment meant many were left disappointed.
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"Turks are not tolerant of poor service. They are probably some of the most
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demanding people when it comes to technology. If you go to the UK you can go
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to a rural area and have no coverage and people accept that as normal, whereas
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Turks have a very high demand for quality - they want coverage even if they
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are two floors underground.
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"Vodafone created a lot of excitement being a new challenger, so new
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customers, mainly from the number one operator [Turkcell], tried the brand,
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but they were used to a level of customer service [Vodafone] couldn't
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provide."
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Timuray, who was poached from the top job at Danone Turkey, says Vodafone was
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"really rapidly losing customers" - the operator's market share dropped from
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23.9pc to 18.6pc over the five quarters prior to her appointment. Over the
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same period, revenue dropped 19.9pc, which led Vittorio Colao, Vodafone's
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chief executive, to brand Turkey a "disaster". "We found [Telsim] was a
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bonfire, not a real win," he said last year, adding that customers signed up
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for Vodafone's special deals only to defect back to the country's "formidable"
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Turkcell.
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Turkey was in such a sorry state that Vodafone wrote down its value by £2.25bn
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- almost the full amount it paid for the operator just four-and-a-half years
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earlier.
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Timuray says the business was in "crisis" because it failed to understand the
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vagaries of the Turkish consumer. "The market was very competitive and complex
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and we had underestimated the lack of investment in the company," she says.
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"But when a company is in crisis you have two options: to fix it or to let it
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go."
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Vodafone committed to Turkey by pumping in €750m (£650m) to improve reception
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in cities, which had poor coverage due to Telsim's origins as a provider for
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rural areas.
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At the same time, Timuray went to work repositioning Vodafone as the
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consumer's friend.
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"Telecoms in Turkey is seen as an untransparent market," she says. "The
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operators usually seem to be companies looking for ways to charge the customer
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as much as possible and make the industry seem very complicated so that
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customers can't get the best deals."
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Vodafone Turkey's number one goal is to improve customer satisfaction, and
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every manager working for the company has signed a declaration to that effect
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in the lobby of the company's Istanbul headquarters.
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It is paying off. The company's revenues rose 24pc in the second quarter,
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compared with a 4pc increase in the overall market.
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"We have acknowledged that we are a service company, which was a big change in
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mindset from being a technology company," she says. "It is about being human
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in the end. And it is the personal touch that matters."
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Does that apply to the chief executive? "They [customers] know my email," she
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says. "Every day I probably have two or three, it's not that many, but they
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are real customers."
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She personally responds to every email, almost instantaneously. She claims her
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"CrackBerry" addiction doesn't annoy her husband or ruin her social life, but
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she "can't remember a time" it wasn't by her side.
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"Don't imagine me sitting there in restaurants with my BlackBerry out. It is
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there, but only in case someone needs me," she says.
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It's still the first thing she touches in the morning and the last thing she
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checks at night. A trait she shares with Colao, who calls her about three
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times a month. "Vittorio is very non-hierarchical. If he has a question he
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would directly call the chief executive [of the operator country]," she says.
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"He would ask some metric in order to sanity check that things were going OK
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but never did I feel any pressure after hanging up the phone. Even in the
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darkest days.
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"From my very first day I felt at home. I have been Vodafone-ised."
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Telegraph
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[![Explosive demand for Apple's iPad will cause global spending on IT to rise
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5.6pc to $3.6 trillion (2.24 trillion) in 2011, according to new figures from
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influential research firm Gartner.][13] ][14]
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### [iPad to boost 2011 IT spend to $3.6 trillion][14]
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[![][15] ][16]
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