And Digi's chairman added that they've been consistently meeting their targets - including reaching a 9% return on equity, but the main strategy that led to their increase in profits, without letting go of any of their staff, was renegotiating their contracts. But did losing some governmental contracts affect them? He said no.
Markhelm Lizarraga, Chairman, Digi
"I think BTL continues to perform better than expected, I mean we have been meeting our targets, the board has challenged management on a five year plan and management has been meeting those projected numbers thankfully. We have pursued aggressively cost cutting exercises and we have continued to deliver bundles and packages that the public has accepted and appreciated so that has been basically our strategy over the last couple of years and I think that the improved returns speak to that."
"What we did was we focused on renegotiating contracts, we focused on procurement, how we procure, how much we procure, we bargain, we negotiated with our suppliers, every supplier renegotiated, and there are many opportunities for us to improve on efficiency throughout the organization and thanks to our staff, our dedicated staff, everybody gets it, that we have to be more productive, more efficient in how we do everything."
Reporter:
"BTL continues to lose contracts from the government though which I understand were some of the biggest, in terms of your revenue stream, how has that impacted the company?"
Markhelm Lizarraga, Chairman, Digi
"That is absolutely not true. We have lost I believe a couple of accounts, not substantial and what it has done, it has forced us to be competitive, which is healthy and we have focused on putting bundles together that is attractive to people, revenues have increased, as a matter of fact, we continue to do a lot of business with the government of Belize, as a matter of fact, they might be one of our largest customers but as individual ministries have been tasked as well to save money in their own ministries, we have to compete so that is the reality and we have been competing I must say so, we've lost minimal business."
Courtney Menzies:
"With such an impressive increase in profits, what benefits will consumers be able to see from this?"
Markhelm Lizarraga, Chairman, Digi
"Well I think consumers have already been seeing a lot of benefits, we believe in giving value to our subscribers and that is why we are successful and the packages and bundles that we continue to offer give our customers and consumers tremendous value so it speaks for itself."
