Telecom companies to sack some of its workers

Some engineers and other employees of telecoms
companies in the country may be thrown into the
labour market as a result of the decision of the
firms to sell off their base stations and towers.
The sale of the assets is part of the outsourcing
model implemented by the telecoms firms to cut
costs following dwindling revenues.

Although the outsourcing of tower services is a
global phenomenon as far as the telecoms
business is concerned, operators in Nigeria are,
however, leveraging on the business model now
to cut down on their cost of operation.
Experts are of the view that this may be the
second time that the sector will experience huge
job losses, following the outsourcing exercise for
the customer service section of the major
operators four years ago, which saw a lot of
employees in the industry losing their jobs.
With the outsourcing model, telecoms firms are
expected to hands-off their involvement in the
provision and maintenance of towers and instead
allow companies with core competence in the
area to manage such services.
This is intended to make telecoms companies to
concentrate on their core business processes.
Tower companies like ATC, IHS, Eaton and Helios
have been identified as possible beneficiaries of
the deals, which are currently being adopted in
most African countries.
The tower firms have all been competing for
assets across the continent, with operators such
as MTN, Vodacom, Millicom, Etisalat, Airtel and
Orange disposing their towers across Africa.
Technically, this arrangement is termed Business
Process Outsourcing.
The deals are struck in partnership with strong
financial institutions, and banking sources said
the tower companies would continue to get
finance on a transaction-dependent basis, as
there were several more deals in the pipeline.
According to the Chairman, Association of
Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria, Mr.
Gbenga Adebayo, the BPO involves the
contracting of the operations and responsibilities
of specific business functions or processes to a
third-party service provider.
He said the main advantage of the BPO was the
way in which it helped to increase a company’s
flexibility.
Adebayo said, “Most services provided by the
BPO vendors are offered on a fee-for-service
basis. This can help a company to become more
flexible by transforming fixed into variable costs.
“A variable cost structure helps a company to
respond to changes in required capacity and does
not require a company to invest in assets, thereby
making the company more flexible. Outsourcing
may provide a firm with increased flexibility in its
resource management and may reduce response
times to major environmental changes.
“Another way in which BPO contributes to a
company’s flexibility is that the latter is able to
focus on its core competencies without being
burdened by the demands of bureaucratic
restraints.”
The Chief Marketing Officer, Helios Towers Nigeria,
Mr. Azuka Ndulewe, said the companies had the
expertise to manage day-to-day tower
management issues as this was their core
strength.
“We actually add value to our customers by our
business model. We also expect that since the
operators have tried and tested the excellent and
professional service delivery of co-location
service providers, they can now move to the next
level by selling and transferring their tower sites
to professional infrastructure co-location
providers and devote their time to running their
networks and acquiring customers,