Q&A: James Herbst, CEO Huge Telecom
BusinessTech got an opportunity to get into a little Q&A with James Herbst, CEO of Huge Telecom, about his prospects for the industry in the year ahead, the challenges he sees, and how he spends his time away from the office.
What are you most excited about for the next 12 months?
A continued shake-up in the industry and the opportunities this creates. At this point I think it is fair to say that most small operators are hurting to one extent or another. Even some of the large second-tier resellers are churning customers at a phenomenal rate. Business models are being reconsidered and the industry battle lines continue to shift – with that comes great opportunity if you position yourself correctly.
What will drive the technology and telecommunications sector in Africa in the near-to-mid future?
Service delivery, mobility and responsiveness. These factors will play a massive role in determining who wins the battle for clients. In Africa as a whole the trend seems to be mobility – mobile, mobile, mobile!
Hopefully operators will be able to make substantial price reductions given the increased traffic volumes. But, they of course need to balance accessibility with the need to continuously upgrade their networks to cater for increased volumes, and a more sophisticated client-base that demands more sophisticated solutions.
What is your expected Capex spend for 2012?
We are fortunate in that we leverage South Africa’s top wireless networks and don’t have to deal with the associated headaches of spending money on and managing our own wireless network and keeping the technology constantly up to date.
To be honest, our business isn’t Capex intensive and the money we do spend will be on new customer premises equipment (CPE) for our clients. Our biggest expense is employing quality people to deliver a quality service to our clients.
What is your biggest challenge, what keeps you awake at night?
How to do more with less! But I suppose that’s every CEO’s problem. I think the biggest challenge for Huge (which becomes our biggest opportunity) is continuing to innovate our offering and respond to the changes in our industry. These past couple of years have been incredibly turbulent and I think the industry is just starting to settle down – a little. In this industry you need to be quick on your toes, otherwise you’re dead in the water.
What is your buzzword for the industry in 2012?
Service.
The technology hype, and in particular voice over IP (VoIP) over legacy fixed-line infrastructure, that has defined telecoms for the last few years is dying down. Clients are realising that the important questions to ask concern lead times to implement; uptimes; mean times to repair; fault resolution processes; and business continuity. If you can’t offer that, it doesn’t matter what technology you’re using or where you set your price.
What margins are you working on?
I have to be careful making profit forecasts – I don’t want to get in trouble with our regulator. We’ve certainly had historical product margin pressures and are using volume opportunities to offset these pressures. Going forward we will also concentrate on new products with higher margin opportunities to further grow profit.
What do you do when you’re not slaving away at the office?
I try to spend as much time as possible with my wife and our two beautiful girls. I make sure I’m home before supper every evening so that we spend quality time together as a family, and then my wife and I get some quality time after the kids have gone to bed. If there’s time I like to keep abreast of current thinking and enjoy reading, otherwise I log on and do a couple hours work after everyone’s sleep.
What is your business passion? What excites you most, what gets you out of bed in the morning?
Success – overcoming the challenges. Telecoms is competitive and I like the game – I want to win!. As Alan Knott-Craig says: “Second is nothing”.
Did Santa spoil you with any new tech gadgets over Christmas?
I’m actually quite old-school; my wife bought me a couple pairs of socks. The kids threw in an i-gadget or two so I consider myself spoilt in the right kind of way.
What is your industry bugbear?
Telling lies, over-selling, pulling the wool over the eyes of the client, and then using price as the saviour to all of these. Clients are far more educated these days, but there is still a lot of misinformation being advertised.
Any favourite apps in your library?
Over the holidays the kids introduced me to the entertainment side of my iPhone. I like the strategy of “Cut-the-rope” and killing the Zombies in “Plants versus zombies” works for me – there is nothing like beating the little buggers; this is not too different from the average day at work. The plants are my management team and the zombies – our competitors.
Online video in enterprise? Yes or no?
Yes.
Social media – yes or no?
Yes – it’s the way of the future. However, it does require management (like all things) lest the cons start outweighing the pros.
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