Ethio telecom Disclose 2019 – 2022 BRIDGE STRATEGY and 2019/2020 Business Plan

This strategy covers a time period from 1 July 2019 to 30 June 2022.

Telecom service has been recognized as an enabler for the socio-economic growth of a nation and plays significant role in overall betterment of citizens’ life. Ethio telecom has been serving the nation for the last 125 years. The company has been engaged in multifaceted reform initiatives to bring operational excellence, ensure affordable and quality services, enhance strategy execution capability, empower and build leadership and staff capacity, and shorten TTM and competitiveness.

Following the government’s direction to reform the Ethiopian telecom market, to create a competitive space, Ethio telecom management has taken its own initiative to develop a three-year strategic plan to get ready for the upcoming change, reshape the company and lead with business orientation and competitive mindset.

This strategy has been developed with in-house capacity following both deliberate and emergent strategy development approaches to accommodate a changing reality, considering the nature of the business and the ongoing market reform. The strategy assumes that in the first year of strategic period, there will not be other operators in the market and no ownership change to Ethio telecom. Furthermore, if any change happens in the course of the year, the strategy is flexible to accommodate the changes.

To ensure competitiveness and sustainable growth of the company, this strategy has been developed by considering and reviewing relevant government policies, international best practices and Industry trends. Various important analyses have been made such as internal and external stakeholders’ interests and expectations (Customers, Employees, Vendors/suppliers and various government organs), previous company performances, internal strengths, organizational resources and capacities, and weaknesses, opportunities and threats in the outer environment (PESTLE) and the upcoming competition.

The strategy has been reviewed at senior and middle management levels, consulted and validated by Ethio telecom Board of Directors. Following validation, communication, cascading and alignment of the strategy have been conducted to improve strategy execution among different work units and at the individual level.

The strategy has been abbreviated as BRIDGE to symbolize progress, connection, overcoming obstacles, transition, stability and hope, which fits the company situation while making itself ready for different tomorrow, competition, and striving to be a preferred telecom operator.

The strategic themes developed for the coming three years are:

Best Customer Experience,
Reputable Brand,
Innovative Product/Service and Technology Excellence,
Develop People Oriented Learning Organization,
Growth in Financial Capacity
Excellence in Operation.

The strategy has 20 major objectives, multiple objective measurement KPIs and strategic initiatives to realize the objectives. It meant to address ever changing customer demand, digital inclusion to create better digital economy, enhance productivity, shift the revenue from traditional revenue streams to value added and content driven services by introducing new business streams and solutions like Internet of Things (IOT), Application Programming Interface (API), Mobile money…

The strategy has also focused on the most important company asset – employees, to equip them with relevant knowledge and skill that will enable them to grasp and catch up with the telecom industry dynamism, to exploit opportunities arising from development of the industry and cope with the challenges. The strategy exercise and last budget year performance have proven that Ethio telecom has employees with high potential, which needs exposure, nurture and prudent utilization that will enable the company to implement the strategy and register outstanding results.

The implementation of the strategy has been started from the beginning of the budget year and remarkable result realized in the month of July 2019. The new budget year embarked with a free gift to customers which further highlights the sharing value of Ethio telecom, following which customers have given encouraging feedback.

Telecom business needs collaboration and concerted efforts of all players in the ecosystem, to this end, the strategy will be further discussed with partners including vendors, distributers, content providers and other stakeholders. This will further enhance the shortening of TTM, meet customer demands by adopting new solutions and insights.

The six thematic areas being the focus of the upcoming three years, specific targets for the objectives will be set in each budget year following assessment of major factors, such as market situation, company performance trends and other internal and external factors affecting the business.

Major Business plan Objectives and Targets in 2012 EFY (July 2019 – June 2020):

To improve the quality of services and service accessibility, network expansion and alternative power solutions will be implemented in Addis Ababa and regions. Based on data traffic growth and demand, 4G network capacity will be rolled out in Addis Ababa and regional capitals. To improve network coverage and capacity, more than 5 Million additional Mobile network capacity will be installed in Addis Ababa and Regions. Furthermore, to accommodate growing data usage, International gateway capacity will be doubled.

Ethio telecom has also planned to increase total subscribers by 16% to 50.46 M, Mobile Voice subscribers by 15% to 48.32M, Data and Internet users by 29% to 28.7M, Fixed broadband subscribers by 166% to 240K. This will bring telecom penetration to 50.5%. To realize service accessibility, 73 additional shops will be operational, which brings total shops to 438. Furthermore, additional 75,000 partner distributors and retailers will be engaged, which brings the number of total partners throughout the country to 267 thousand.

By engaging in new business streams and shifting revenue source from traditional to value-added services and by offering 39 new and 23 revamped local and international products & services, Ethio telecom aims to generate 45.42B Birr revenue. The revenue share will be 53% from Mobile voice, 33% from Data & Internet, 9% from International Business and 5% from Value Added Services.

With enhanced employee engagement, empowerment, skill development and goal alignment, Ethio telecom aims to ensure operational excellence and ultimately customer satisfaction. To this end, employees and management have committed and vowed to implement the strategy with sense of ownership, honesty, integrity and determination.