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In the biggest change since part-owner Annette Presley left day-to-day management, phone company CallPlus has rearranged its business structure to better attack Telecom's market share.
In a move which mirrors the corporate structure of Telecom, the company will form four new business units - Slingshot Retail for residential phone and internet customers, CallPlus Retail to service business internet and phone customers, Blue Reach wireless and a wholesale division.
Executive chairman Malcolm Dick said CallPlus was reaching a size where it was easier to break into smaller more specialised businesses with independent management teams focusing on their respective markets.
"Our reorganisation is essential and will ensure we are well positioned to aggressively go after Telecom's market share and advance our network build, customer acquisition and product delivery," Dick said.
Slingshot and CallPlus will each have its own customer service, sales and marketing and product development teams - services that were previously shared.
The changes announced yesterday will see Martin Wylie take charge of the CallPlus group of companies, with marketing and sales manager Mark Callander appointed general manager of Slingshot.
A new face in the management team, Dot Johnstone, co-founder of software developer Keylogix, will become general manager of business customer focused division CallPlus.
Wylie said Johnstone would bring a huge depth of experience in both technology and sales and marketing gained from running her own businesses.
Graham Walmsley will step back from managing the Blue Reach WiMAX trial in Whangarei and become general manager of the new wholesale division.
Walmsley will be responsible for taking advantage of the introduction of local loop unbundling [LLU] and unbundled bitstream services, Wylie said.
"There's big opportunities in that area particularly as the smaller operators struggle to come up with the investment that's going to be required to meet the service needs going forward."
Wylie said he would take over running the Blue Reach subsidiary in the short-term, which had invested $3 million in developing a WiMAX-based voice and high-speed broadband service.
He confirmed it had begun selling fixed-WiMAX services in the Whangarei area over the past few months. While the current allocation of spectrum allowed the company to develop the network from Papakura northward, Wylie said any further investment decisions would be made after the LLU pricing and conditions were settled.
"We are waiting for what the pricing off LLU is going to be as to which is the most economically feasible model."
