Dabengwa looks to make his mark at MTN
The success story of telecoms multinational MTN isn't over just yet a new chapter has begun under a new author, Sifiso Dabengwa.
He took over as the group CEO six months ago and last week marked 139 days in office by announcing an impressive set of financial results.
Dabengwa isn't exactly new at MTN. He has been with the company for the past 12 years in different positions. He was group chief operating officer and served as MTN's vice-president of south and east African region. He also served as CEO of MTN Nigeria.
"It has been a smooth transition," Dabengwa says. "I have been working with the company for the last 12 years but in different positions. The board has been very supportive and we have a great team. Having been familiar with the strategies, the overall performance has been positive."
The straight-talking Dabengwa is at ease managing multimillion rand projects. Before joining MTN in 1999, he was head of Eskom's distribution division, which generated revenue above R20bn and had a workforce of more than 17000.
Dabengwa is a trained engineer.
Announcing MTN's financial results last Wednesday, Dabengwa revealed the group now had 152.3 million customers using its network across the 21 countries it operates in Africa and the Middle East. These were first set of results under Dabengwa, who took over when the celebrated Phuthuma Nhleko left the company.
Dabengwa says the new chapter in the MTN story will relate to evolving the business to support information and communication technology convergence.
Dabengwa cites the long term evolution (LTE) as a case in point of how the company was evolving. MTN is piloting LTE at 100 sites in Gauteng. It demonstrated the ultra-high speed network a few weeks ago. The network boasts speeds of up to 70Mbps, making it the fastest network in the country. The highest speed at present is 42Mbps.
MTN says the activation of the LTE sites will be done in phases and they are all expected to go live within the next few months.
MTN expects to make this new generation network commercially available throughout the country within the next two to three years once the regulator allocates the required spectrum to enable a national rollout. MTN has invested R18bn in infrastructure.
Analysts believe that Dabengwa inherited a sound business and will focus more on operational efficiency rather than going after acquisitions to grow the business. "He is an operations person and that's on its owns differentiates him from Phuthuma,"says Africa Analysis telecoms researcher Chris Ngwenyama. Vitalis Ozianyi, another analyst from Frost & Sullivan, said while Dabengwa is likely to succeed, he needs to engage more with stakeholders including the media.
"He doesn't interact often if you compare with Phuthuma. "He has inherited a well defined structure and he has the potential to succeed.
We'll see more of his leadership when MTN announces full results next year." It remains to be seen what the title of the MTN story book under Dabengwa but in his own words: "We still have a story."
