By Rea Cu / Special to the BusinessMirror
WHERE there are challenges, there are also opportunities.
This is how a top executive of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) sees the digital revolution currently changing the business landscape for the telecommunications giant and other industry players.
PLDT EVP Ernesto Alberto shared with members of the media at the Asian Carrier Conference 2015 recently held at the Shangri-La’s Mactan Resort and Spa in Cebu how the telco has adapted to the fast-paced digital changes that it constantly encounters.
Giving insight on the company’s plans for the future, Alberto said PLDT has been responding to every challenge by offering new products and services to suit every unique taste, given the varying wants and needs of its consumers.
He said PLDT has gone through a lot of paradigm shifts over the years, being in the business of telecommunications for almost nine decades.
“It is not unusual that PLDT always acts quickly on its feet to outsmart any possible curveball thrown at it,” he said.
Being the leading telecommunications company in the Philippines, PLDT made its mark as a landline-service provider, the only one for years.
From the voice platform as its main communications format, the company shifted to data and mobile mediums to give its consumers better quality of service and also to generate enough revenues to sustain operations and expand services.
Alberto said the market has varying preferences, which change with the times. An example is the use of voice services that was strong before but has been overtaken by mobile and Internet services.
With products ranging from PLDT Home Ultera, PLDT Telpad, PLDT Home Fibr and many more, the company strives to give consumers the best of what the company can offer.
And it doesn’t stop there as it always searches for possible partnerships and acquisitions to help boost its products and services, making sure that the quality of its products and services always exceeds market expectations.
Alberto said the voice medium is not and will never become obsolete. It is just delivered differently now.
“Consumers have to talk; they have to communicate to get their messages across. It may not be through landline telephone like in the old days when people used IDD [international direct dialing] to call abroad, but when people use apps, they do it to communicate.
It may take on many forms but voice will always be part of communications,” he said.
Telecommunication companies and other industry players have gathered at the ACC 2015 to network and to learn the different business models they can adopt to survive in the virtual world of advanced technology.
They came to find out new business models that involve data, mobile, voice and digital content. But above all, they came to discover how they can adopt, and maybe dominate their niche in the fast-expanding digital economy.