Some of the biggest international telecom providers are busy cutting fat from the bones of their lumbering operations with BT, Vodafone and Virgin Media all announcing hefty cost cutting and redundancy packages in recent weeks.
Scott Allison, managing director at abica, said: “Businesses are looking harder and longer at their costs than they have for many years and telecoms is one area where significant savings can be made. By focusing specifically on the SME market, we offer customers a better service at a lower cost than our larger competitors and this is something we think firms will increasingly take advantage of.”
Abica currently employs 12 staff and Allison said that was on course to at least double within the next 12 months.
On top of this organic growth, there are also acquisitional ambitions within the business and abica hopes to complete its first corporate purchase by the end of 2009.
“In the last 15 years the telecom market has opened up and many network and service providers have become real giants,” said Allison.
“However they now face a downturn in their business and customers are becoming more price sensitive in the face of recession. This opens up massive opportunities for smaller providers who can better position their products and services to individual sectors of the market and who do not have the huge overheads that larger rivals are struggling with.”
For networks with a tailored offering and a straight talking approach, Allison said the coming months would give them the chance to compete with bigger competitors on a level playing field, as customers actively evaluated the contracts they were on and how they could improve them.
He concluded: “We are looking to grow our market share and take on new staff to cope with the business we are generating. I think the coming months are going to be very difficult for the established market leaders as they struggle with falling revenues. This will help push customers out into the market to really look for alternatives and those who have not taken the time to do so in the past will be pleasantly surprised by the options that are out there.”