Vox Telecom’s focus on improving service delivery has won over investors who had considered selling their shares a few months ago.
The company’s uncompromising attitude towards service delivery and its innovative management team are reasons enough to be confident of future growth.
While many Information Communication Technology (ICT) companies flood the market with numerous products, Vox Telecom prefers to perfect its service delivery to its customers.
The company – which was delisted from the JSE in 2011 by its investors that include Investec, Lereko Metier Capital and RMB – is taking measures to provide quality fibre services and other products to its customers.
Vox Telecoms, which prides itself on innovation and delivery of superior product quality, aims to provide quality services in the Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) and Fibre-to-the-Business (FTTB) market.
Vox Telecom has acquired Frogfoot Networks, an Internet service provider, for an undisclosed amount as part of its efforts to deliver superior product quality to its fibre customers.
Today Vox Telecom’s CEO Jacques Du Toit informed TechFinancials.co.za that the company’s acquisition of Frogfoot Networks had accelerated its move into the growing FTTB and FTTH market.
This acquisition would enable Vox Telecom to deploy fibre in South Africa’s big cities and other smaller cities such as Bloemfontein, Mmabatho, Polokwane, etc.
To further increase revenue streams, the ICT firm last month launched a first to market an uncapped voice package. Available to customers in suburbs, where Vox Telecom is rolling out FFTH, uncapped voice package enables unlimited calls to mobile, national and local fixed line and select international destinations.
Du Toit says that these initiatives represent the company’s growth strategy, as they offer good value to customers. In addition it helps the company to be a fully integrated technology partner.
“The fact that Vox Telecom is becoming a fully integrated technology partner is allowing our customers to differentiate themselves on their own in the market place,” explains Du Toit, adding that this development could double the size of the business within five years.
If Vox Telecom was a JSE listed-entity this would be a good time to invest your money into this ICT firm.
The omens are good.
The market is experiencing consolidation and Vox Telecom is one of the natural consolidators.
It has enough capital to go on a shopping spree and still has the ability to grow organically through the introduction of exciting products and services.
What also count in its favour is that Vox Telecom enjoys the support of its shareholders.
The company – which doesn’t disclose its market value, revenue or profits – has made close to five acquisitions in the past few months. Du Toit says Vox Telecom is still hunting for more buys.
A few months ago Vox Telecom was nearly sold to the highest bidder by its investors, but after asking management to present its strategy going forward they opted not to sell.
The firm, which now employs close to 1000 people, is on a strong growth footing.
Other factors such as the regulators delaying the approval of the Vodacom-Neotel deal work in Vox Telecom’s favour.
The longer the delay the more companies such as Vox Telecom would continue to dominate niche markets. Vox Telecom could take further advantage of the delay by attracting critical skills from both companies – Vodacom and Neotel even Telkom and Business Connexion.
Since its delisting, Vox Telecom has become agile and nimble.
Unfortunately public investors, who want to be part of this growing company, cannot do so because Vox Telecom is not trading on the stock exchange.
Vox Telecom is one of the only remaining relatively big telecoms operators and internet service providers in the country that have not been acquired by bigger operators. It seems to be surviving the consolidation phase in the ICT market.
It is also one of the few local companies that is still profitable despite being bought by private firms and delisted from the JSE. There are many horror stories out there of companies, which were bought and delisted. Some ended up with serious debts.
With the high demand for services for FTTH or FTTB, Vox Telecom differentiates itself by providing quality niche networks for its customers. Interestingly it doesn’t want to compete directly with Vodacom, MTN and Telkom in this market.
Du Toit says there are a lot of new entrants in the fibre space, but some of them are taking short cuts that result in poor quality installations and networks.
He says Vox Telecom can compete aggressively, but the problem is “with all the new entrants that are trying to find cheaper ways and cutting corners to get their fibre on the ground”.
What also sets Vox Telecom apart from its competitors is the fact that it has diverse portfolio of products such as security services, CCTV, voice, connectivity, hosting, messaging & collaboration, cloud, outsourced technology, consulting & integration and communications services.
These services and strategic acquisitions plus diversification of its revenue streams translate into a competitive edge.
In addition Vox Telecom plans to introduce between four and seven new products and services a year to the market. This is part of its strategy to provide quality services to its customers.
All indications are that Vox Telecom could continue to benefit from industry changes and from its philosophy of perfecting its service delivery to customers.
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