Telecom solutions company bullish with expansion plans

CEBU, Philippines - Despite a volatile economy teeming with cautious optimism of most companies hounded by a global catastrophe, telecommunications and solutions company Eastern Communications remains bullish with their operations this year banking on its massive investments nationwide.

With the company’s 131 years of service, Eastern is now bent on focusing its competencies in serving the needs of its clientele especially to aide them weather the current global financial crisis, said Edwin A. Domingo, Eastern Communications division head for marketing and business development.

In an interview, Domingo pointed out that the tough economic environment has prompted most companies to invest in telecommunications solutions to enhance their operations.

Quoting outcomes of different researches, Domingo said that internet, bandwidth and data requirements of businesses have been reportedly growing 75 percent annually and the use of the internet, wifi and other information and communication technology tools have become a wide trend.

He said that the impact of the global economic crisis has undoubtedly been felt by the corporate market but this did not stop Eastern from continually investing to provide more value added services to their client-base.

Domingo said that their corporate market segment composes 88 percent of their market base while the consumer market comprises only 12 percent.

“We do not plan to be just a Telco company because want to be more than that. We want to be a solutions company and in our expansion coverage, we will devote our resources in focusing to deliver the growing and ever changing requirements of the corporate market,” said Domingo.

He said that Eastern is still looking at bright spots of growth and recovery because business process outsourcing companies continue to grow which produces a multiplier effect to other sectors like real estate as well as the telecommunications industry.

Domingo added that they are banking on the opportunities in the market at these times of economic meltdown because they see the growing need to be more connected to boost productivity, the need to be cost-effective and provide products that can enable cost reduction as well as the they see the need for more partnerships.

“Multinationals need to connect now more than ever to boost their productivity. Cost reduction is the call for today’s times because of the crisis. Rather than actually travelling, they now instead do video conferencing so there is a need for bundled connectivity to help them cut on costs,” said Domingo.

He said that this year is an aggressive year for them to market despite the challenges of the soft economy and that in fact this year Eastern is still look at achieving a positive growth of 21 percent in sales and operations after achieving a growth of 13 percent in 2008 over that of 2007.

“We look at growing about 20 percent annually for the next five years. We remain optimistic because we keep our strategies long term. Yes, there is in fact a crisis but if we think long term and beyond the crisis so we believe there is still growth. We keep an eye on growth so we prepare for that growth organizationally,” said Domingo.

 Eastern Communications has invested close to one billion pesos in the year 2008 to 2009 timeline and was used for infrastructure development such as the installation of the 240 kilometers underground cable from Makati to Batangas as well as enhancement in their facilities in Northern Luzon and in Cebu, said Domingo.

Eastern Communications provided the country’s first telegraphic services in 1878 and established a station in Cebu in 1899.

Over these years, the company continued to invest in infrastructure, systems, and global partnerships and in its people to expand and improve its telecommunication service which led to the introduction of many firsts in voice, data and internet innovations here in the Philippine market, said Domingo.

Today, the company has evolved into a full service provider of telecommunication services from data and internet leased circuits, full service telephony and managed Telco services providing an array of connectivity solutions to met growing demands of clients. —Rhia de Pablo