In Tonga

Party is over, everyone out of the pool

Posted by: Samiuela LV Taufa on December 03, 2007 9:15:33 AM

The party's over, Everyone! Out of the Pool !!

Great to hear that the venerable board of the Tonga Communications Corporation, TCC, have pulled their finger out and made a decision (or non decision) about their future person in charge and decided to no longer need the services of their current Managing Director.

Great Idea Guys! Let's penny pinch now, so we can lose as much money as we can later. One of those rarefied air situations where it would be nice (or probably not) to taste the rationale (or not) that came up with that decision.

The environment.

Shoreline Communications Ltd, operators of the Tonfon Mobile Phone Service, Tonfon Internet and Tonfon TV (and I think some of those are making money?) have recently been sold to Digicel Pacific. How big is Digicel ? I don't know, but if you do a web search on "Digicel Tonga" you'll soon find that there are a lot of people who talk about Digicel who have just noticed Tonga?

About Digicel Pacific Limited
Since its launch in the Pacific in November 2006, Digicel has become the fastest-growing mobile operator in the Pacific with current operations in Samoa and Papua New Guinea, as well as commitments from the Governments of Fiji, Vanuatu and several other countries in the Pacific. Digicel is renowned for competitive rates, unbeatable coverage, superior customer care, a wide variety of products and services, and state-of-the-art handsets.
Digicel Pacific is a proud sponsor of several national rugby teams across the Pacific including; Fiji Rugby, Digicel Fiji Sevens, Digicel Pacific Islanders Rugby Team and the Digicel Pukpuks.
Digicel Pacific is a sister company to Digicel Group in the Caribbean, which launched in 2001 and is now the largest GSM provider in the Pan Caribbean region with 5.7 million customers and employing in excess of 3500 people.

Digicel Pacific, Digicel Tonfon should be expected to come in and changing what was a poorly run, nepotistic company with good equipment into a dangerous well oiled competitor.

Those family members sucking up the blood of the company will get a nice severance payout or join the ranks of yesteryears highly paid redundant IBM employees with guaranteed high wages performing meaningless demeaning work, how long could those fie'eiki's deal with mopping or cleaning the toilets?

Digicel Tonga will soon be a lean fighting outfit under good management and better technical support staff.

Fear for survival is always a good impetus for changing to the better.

In the meantime

Let's just "dump" our current General Manager?

Who needs a GM with pride in his workers ? Isn't that just a total waste of company time and resources instilling pride in your workers, to do good work, to meet and exceed customer needs? I've never met a palangi so supportive of his staff, and directing his staff to care about their customers out of concern for providing quality work, instead of fear of management. Who needs that ?

We don't need a GM who puts a priority on training both junior and senior staff? We don't need senior staff though technically capable but without management training, being sent on management training so they can be more effective and their teams more effective.

So long as the company is making a profit, let's not waste money on such trivial matters. The senior staff can supposedly deal with their incompetence, and workers below them can deal with leadership incompetence and poor quality output. Isn't that the norm we want?

Who needs a GM with visible evidence he cares about the country's future. I've only met up with this dude a couple of times, relating to his providing the country with free consultancy, free use of his experience, and free use of his expertise. Who needs such missionaries, not our TCC Board.

This obviously is a sad and not so isolated situation.

Best of luck to you Steve, and we the users of Telecommunications in Tonga wish you well in your next endeavors.