Interview with Mr. Mustafa Resit Akdogan, General Director of ALBtelecom
What were the achievements of your company during year 2007?
The year 2007 was a transition year for ALBtelecom sensitively affecting the achievements of company. As it is known, the procedures for the privatization of the company finished in mid 2007, the majority of shareholders was purchased by Turkish conscourcium “Calik Holding”. Right after 76 per cent shareholder purchase contract approval by Albanian Parliament, the new managing staff in cooperation with existing employees had a successful cooperation for the end of year 2007 positive results and maximum effect softening the major shareholder property transfer from state to Turkish consourcium “Çalik Holding”. Saying in different words, the achievements of the company were satisfactory by taking into consideration the company`s transition. The new staff and existing staff devotion reduced in maximum the privatization transit consequences for the year 2007. In order to have a light transition, the new managing staff focused immediately during the second half of year 2007 on investments aiming the quality service increase and applying market competing prices.
What are the achievements for year 2008 and which new services and products have you offered?
The year 2008 marks the start of a new era within the ALBtelecom Company as well as for the fix network telecommunication service. After a transit year on privatization and situation identification by purchasing company, the investments are focused on it`s infrastructure and network improvement in the country. The company is working so fast for months to improve the existing network and increase new capacities as well. There has been worked on other internet service improvements such as quality of service and price reduce. There was a sensitive quality service increase after almost a year of privatization of the company. The quality service increase is in unity with service tariff reduce. Many services offered by ALBtelecom since before are now of very higher quality and up to three times less price. The investments of the company during this year are focused on fix telephone network expanding as well as for internet service capacity growth through ADSL service. ADSL quality service improve for capacity increase and price decrease for the client has been the focus of company`s work. In paralel with those services the work is going on for the infrastructure preparation to enable other future services. The company has the aim of quality service increase, price decrease for services offered and it`s capacity enlargement to fulfil the needs of consumers.
Which are your strong points with regard to market competitors?
ALBtelecom sh.a. is the largest public operator in the field of telecommunication services on fix network in Albania. As such, the capacities of the company in this field are far more than those competitors in the market. Being as a leading company, ALBtelecom offers a wide range of services such as fix telephone, ADSL internet service, intranet, card phone service etc. Since long ago, the ALBtelecom Company is investing on network and infrastructure improvement to better quality service. A modern and further improved infrastructure, gives to ALBtelecom the possibility to offer all services basing on IP system, as well as enabling the fix telephone giant to offer services of top quality. Increase of existing quality services, covering of the whole territory, management and technical staff, and the infrastructure improvement are some of the company’s strong points toward other competitors. The existing quality of service increase will soon be associated with such other quality services and favourable prices such as the KIOSK and POS services which enable the multimedia internet telephones, internet video and audio service etc. The investment made on a quality and internet service without interruption, fast, economical and effective make the company as a market leader by sensitively diffracting it from other competitors. Besides the quality, the company has decided to operate with far lower prices for the same service than other market operators. Another strong point is the fact that there is no other operator in Albania with the capacity, quality and prices like ALBtelecom, making it as such the top leader on fix network telecommunication services and gives the possibility to continue investments for other quality services and reasonable prices for Albanian citizens.
The “Monitor” Magazine, 10 September