Smart woes : Headcount to drop to 100

machalla

A company spokesman confirmed the redundancies to ENN and said Smart is due to reduce its workforce from its August figure of 348 to 100 over a three-month period.

http://www.enn.ie/frontpage/news-9813445.html

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machalla wrote:

A company spokesman confirmed the redundancies to ENN and said Smart is due to reduce its workforce from its August figure of 348 to 100 over a three-month period.

http://www.enn.ie/frontpage/news-9813445.html

While the job reductions will be a difficult transition for those affected, it will reduce the cost base and hopefully let the company focus on developing existing profitable business activities in a lower cost environment, while the regrettably dozy ComReg/DCMNR get moving on making LLU and numbering portability a reality available in real time to customers and service providers at a price designed to reduce eircom's 80% odd stranglehold on the market. We wouldn't tolerate Dunnes or Tesco with 80% of the food market - why tolerate eircom?

If they don’t (take the necessary action against eircom to expedite an economic and time efficient “GLUMP process”) more and more market participants will fail or pull out and Ireland will be left with a monopoly or binopoly and some of the highest telecom prices in the planet. The writing is on the wall as they say.

LLU is profitable and provides a very competitive service – the model Smart and Magnet is trying to follow in Ireland – but they are being fought at every turn by eircom and their alma mater buddies working is the regulatory system.

The proof of the pudding that LLU works (and makes the incumbent wake up and deliver!) may be found in the latest results of a mirror image company in France:

ISIN: FR0004035913

http://www.iliad.fr/en/finances/2006/CP20060907_Eng.pdf

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byte

Things are obviously bad at Smart! I notice they've made 6 month losses of €35m! Close to €10m of that is down to their legal battle over the 3G license. And why do I get the funny feeling they're gonna lose that case too.

On another note, I hadn't realised Oisin Fanning had stood down as CEO.

Wouldnt' mind, but I'm using Smart BB, as it was the cheapest for me! Hope it runs another wee while!

TCP/IP

As much as it pains me to say it because competition is so important is that this company is only heading one way and that is to the wall. Far to small a customer base, losing money like no tomorrow and its CEO leaves due to Medical problems (uummmmm). Smart will sell its customer base to esat or digiweb and will be out of business I reckon by this time next year, but dont get me wrong i hope this does not happen. I think the main problem with smart was it was set up with the intention of gaining a quick and large customer base and then selling up to one of the big telcos for a large profit but this simply did not turn out to be the case.

SkepticOne

Well Smart are certainly to be commended for giving Eircom a fright. A large part of Eircom's price reductions and improved specifications are almost certainly down in part to competition from Smart's products.

trekkypj

I reckon Smart might just hang in there long enough for some company to buy the operation and finance it properly.

Realistically, how can anyone compete with the behemoth that is Eircom? You need serious capital behind you and full unfuddled access to the exchanges.

To be honest, from what I know, admittedly very little, what is killing Smart is the LLU delays that have happened in the past. I read the minutes of the broadband committee a while back and the Smart rep was complaining that it had a backlog of 6000 people waiting for telephone services including broadband at that time.

When the delays occured, Smart really wrote its epitaph, at least in its current state. The only thing that can keep it going is a new backer with plenty of money to invest, and an aggressive policy in forcing through its connections in a timely manner at the exchange level by making a bloody nuisance of themselves, legally speaking, if and when it proves necessary.

cgarvey

If regulation was done properly, Smart would be "realistically" able to compete very directly with eircom.

Smart are definitely to be commended. My only problem with them, was that should have known the regulatory environment (which is very much of the compassionate towards eircom ethos), and a small bit of research would have shown the issues like GNP and LLU flaws. They still went ahead with it regardless (which hurts shareholders and some customers alike). Personally, I think the "fright" they brought outweighs that but I'm neither a shareholder or a customer, so it's easy for me to say.

.cg

eircomtribunal

This article in the Sunday Business Post illustrates the financial situation of SMART some more.

P.

thebman

I was driving home from Dublin and someone from Smart was on the radio. They said that in order for you to get broadband with them if you were a smart customer, you essentially had to disconnect from Smart service, join Eircom and then order the broadband then rejoin Smart telecom when done. They said that it was a ridiculous situation and that it was a direct failing on the part of the communications regulator.

About job cuts, they are stopping the whole tele-sales thing where they ring up and ask would you like to join Smart which was costing them 2 million a year or something like that and they said they weren't getting enough subscribers to be worth their while so I assume those jobs are included in whats been cut.

fatherdougalmag

More trouble at Smart: http://www.rte.ie/business/2006/1002/smart.html

cregser

I was about to post that link myself. It's pretty dreadful news alright.

I wonder whether Smart just didn't work behind the scenes (despite their good image) or if this all down to Eircom (which looks the case).

Nobdoy wins here except Eircom.

watty

I know someone who turned down a job in Smart because the Business Plan didn't make sense. I think their business plan assumed tough regulation on Eircom.

Eircom are doing what any unregulated company would do.

hmmm

watty wrote:

Eircom are doing what any unregulated company would do.

A beautiful one liner, I'm going to repeat that to everyone I know