Etisalat Nigeria, has unveiled strategies it would pursue to reduce both operating and (Opex) and capital expenditure (Capex).According to the telecom company, it would adopt measures such as co-location and hybrid power as measure to reduce costs.Chief Executive Officer of the firm, Steven Evans, who spoke at the Africa Com Conference which took place in South Africa, said the firm was also actively considering other measures like transmission sharing and sales and leaseback of towers, adding that in the commercial arena, the company has also embarked on a number of operational efficiency initiatives such as optimizing retail outlet formats and migrating to over the air recharges for prepaid customers. 'At Etisalat, our aim is to develop ways of making more efficient use of available resources to achieve the best results. For instance, we have been propounding the philosophy of co-location in Nigeria and are happy to say that we have made significant progress with one of the other major operators in the country. That has given rise to an extensive co-location agreement and a good deal for both parties and the country in general. This has also led to a reduction of resources channeled to erecting new towers and the opportunity to cover more communities and areas,' he said.He highlighted tower sale and leaseback as an excellent way of releasing capital to invest in core activities such as customer acquisition, management and retention as well as increasing the number of significant tower deals by African tower companies.Said he, 'Operators in the telecommunications industry are not required to own their towers in order to have effective operations. Towers can be owned and managed by third party specialist tower companies. A major advantage of this is that capital is saved and re-invested in the growth of business, network expansion and improved services.' He had spoke on: 'Operator Strategies to reduce CAPEX and OPEX in Africa' at the event.Africa Com conference organized by Informa telecoms and media is the largest communications conference and exhibition in the continent gathering together over 5000 telecoms decision makers. The opening keynotes of the 14th edition of this annual event reinforced the sense that the industry gathering in 2011 is somewhat different to those of previous years. The analysts, comments and insights from some of the region's biggest carriers highlighted a maturity in the marketplace that has put Africa on the map for internet giants to explore. Customer loyalty and retention were also identified as becoming more important factors for the operators to bear in mind.
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