2017 was a year of commercial successes for Orange Belgium, crowned by attaining the 100,000 Love customers milestone. Johan Deschuyffeleer, Chairman of the Board of Directors, and Michaël Trabbia, CEO of Orange Belgium, look back in pride and forward with eager anticipation.
What were the key events or achievements for Orange Belgium in 2017?
Johan Deschuyffeleer: 2017 was marked by strong commercial results, demonstrating the success of the company’s commercial strategy and execution. Financial and commercial targets were met, while Orange directed the right resources towards the company’s future growth by investing in its convergent positioning.
I would also like to highlight that Orange Belgium ended the year 2017 with 2.32 million postpaid customers, adding 67,600customers over the year, underlining the growing nature of its core mobile business.
2017 was also an important year for Orange’s digital transformation programme, both externally, whilst shaking up the mobile and convergence market, as well as internally, with several changes to optimise the digital experience of Orange employees.
Michaël Trabbia: Indeed, 2017 demonstrated a very good commercial momentum thanks to our consistent investments in customer experience, our leading 4G network, as well as the strong commitment of our employees.
The main achievement to my mind was our successful performance in the convergence market, which we entered only 18 months ago. We’re bringing an offer that is simple while containing everything that is essential for the customer, without expensive and unnecessary add-ons. Our Love offer has been very well received by our customers − and in reaching our target of 100,000 customers at the end of 2017, we have captured more than 60% of the market growth in 2017.
We must remember that, a year ago, many observers had doubts about our being able to achieve this, because all previous efforts to enter the fixed market duopoly in Belgium had failed. So, we’re extremely proud of our success, which is due to the entire company’s efforts.
We are constantly enhancing our customers’ experience.
Michaël Trabbia
On the mobile market, Orange’s postpaid customer base is growing steadily thanks to our customer-oriented 4G product portfolio, strong commercial campaigns, the continued success of the ‘Orange Thank You’ loyalty programme and the launch of Double Data for convergent customers.
Since the rebranding into Orange Belgium in 2016, the position of the company has also strengthened in the business segment. Orange Belgium wants to further reinforce its relationship with small, medium and large size businesses in Belgium to offer them a complete one-stop-shop service offering, bringing mobile and fixed connectivity in addition to a whole range of digital services.
What role is Orange Belgium playing in the market today?
Johan Deschuyffeleer: It’s quite clear that, over the years, Orange Belgium has been able to establish a very strong residential mobile business, and it’s also clear that, from a strategic point of view, the ambition is to become just as important a player in the business market. Orange is collaborating with strong partners to build an ecosystem that is adapted to the customer.
We have proven that we are a serious player on the convergence market. With support from the regulatory authorities, we can work in an even more open market to bring even more competitive offers and services to the benefit of consumers and to Belgian society as a whole.
What are the main challenges that you see ahead, and where will your focus be in 2018?
Johan Deschuyffeleer: A main challenge for Orange Belgium − which is also an opportunity − is to be sure that we really understand our customers, that we understand what they expect from us. We need to know what their data, TV and telecom needs and desires are, and then we need to deliver them in a digital world at a fair price with a very high level of quality.
And as the market keeps moving so rapidly, innovation is critical here. We need to continually bring new services to our customers, with a constant eye on operational excellence.
Another challenge, for this year and the years to come, is the digital transformation that everyone is going through. We need to continue to invest in our ability to provide the best digital experience to both our customers and our employees. I would like to point out that we have deliberately attracted people who have experience in this digital transformation to our board and management team.
In a market where there is high demand for top talent in technology, a soft but essential challenge is to be sure that we can attract, develop and promote the best talent in the industry. I personally want to ensure that Orange Belgium is a good place to deliver a strong contribution, where people can be part of challenging projects and grow and develop. I want Orange to be a place where they can accomplish and experience something that they cannot find elsewhere.
Michaël Trabbia: We keep investing in our network to guarantee a highly qualitative experience to our customers. Investments are made not only to prepare the future but also to offer speed and capacity to the growing demand for mobile data. We want to offer our customers a worry-free connectivity and wow them with disruptive offers that allow them to stay connected anytime anywhere. The same goes for our B2B customers where we want to continue to be their preferred connectivity partner. At Orange, we concentrate on some simple but profound principles, like peace of mind − we don’t want our customers to worry about their contract, their communication or business continuity, we want them to have a package that answers their telecom needs as closely as possible.
And we’ll be rolling out our innovative IoT offer to our business customers. We invite all application developers, system integrators and early adopters to test the advantages of the Orange Mobile IoT network, which will allow them to connect millions of everyday objects to the internet.
Convergence remains a strategic focus, and we reiterate our mid-term target of 10 % broadband market share. Furthermore, to aim at turning our cable business break-even in the coming years, we are actively working on improving our efficiency, and at the same time we appeal to the regulators to substantially and quickly improve the financial and operational conditions for cable wholesale access. Strong regulatory improvements are required to ensure sustainable competition in Belgium.
Operationally, we have one major focus in 2018, and that’s digital transformation, which will benefit both our customers and our employees. Our business and operational teams will also be working very closely with IT to be more agile and effective, to shrink time-to-market, and to increase customer satisfaction with their experience.
What strategy will you deploy to achieve your ambitions?
Michaël Trabbia: To support our ambitions, we have adopted a bold challenger positioning − focusing on what’s essential for our customers – which we started to illustrate early 2018 with the launch of the 1st fully unlimited mobile offer in Belgium. Indeed, we want to shake up the Belgian telecom market. By daring more, the challenge is to stay relevant. We need to focus on what's important in people's lives and 'get even closer to what is essential for them'.
We want to facilitate our customers’ full participation in the new digital culture − the ability to be connected everywhere, at any time, with their mobile phone. We’re preparing the future.
Michaël Trabbia
Johan Deschuyffeleer: I would like to emphasise my appreciation, respect and gratitude for the strong engagement, contribution and passion that our team members display every day. They give the best of themselves, which enables Orange Belgium to serve its customers in the way they truly want to be served.
