December is traditionally a key month for cellular telephony sales, during which the number of new contracts signed or old ones renewed is double the number in a regular month. This year, however, Orange expects results to be better both because of the more “stable” climate in the economy and because of the commercial strategy changes and investments made in the GSM network and in stores.
Ducarroz says that although there is little good news about the economy, at least he is more optimistic than he was last year, not because he expects a boom but because things are more stable now.
“Last year, no one could tell where we were going – after 20%, 10% decline there was no predictability.” The Orange official admits that he cannot say that everything is going very well now, just that there is more stability. “This year’s sales season will better than last year’s.”
Swiss-born Julien Ducarroz came to Orange Romania as head of strategy in December 2007 and has been chief commercial officer since 2009. He says that the estimates about the better sales season largely have to do with the changes the company made this year. Orange is starting to see a series of actions it took a while ago pay off. Such actions include the massive investments made in the network this year or the changes in the store chain.
Along with these investments, the company also worked on a new commercial strategy for this key sales season, when Orange is battling Vodafone, Cosmote and even RCS&RDS over customers. Why the changes in Orange’s offer? Because the battle fought with call minutes is close to showing its limitations, Ducarroz says, and the market is mature, hence one cannot go on a “hunt” for new customers only without closely looking at what is going on in one’s own customer base, especially because it exceeds 10 million.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)