Case Study of Singtel Managing Change

Introduction

Being Asia's leading communications group, SingTel provides a diverse range of communication services and solutions, including fixed, mobile, data, Internet, info-communications technology, satellite and pay TV. They are the largest listed company on the Singapore Exchange by market capitalization. After its acquisition of Optus the second largest communications provider in Australia in September 2001, they are listed on the Australian Securities Exchange. In addition, the SingTel Group is a long-term strategic investor in six regional mobile operators in India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Pakistan and Bangladesh. To serve the needs of multinational corporations, SingTel has a network of 36 offices in 19 countries and territories throughout Asia Pacific, in Europe and the USA. (SingTel 2011)

In this case study, I will analyse the change strategies SingTel has incorporated from the past to the present as well as its plans for the future. In addition, I will discuss the lessons being learnt for future applications.

Past

Singapore Telecom was founded in 1879. In 1971, this company became the monopoly government-owned postal and telecommunications services provider and in 1986 SingTel planned to be a privatization with government owned about 80% of Singapore telecom (SingTel 2011).

SingTel was corporatized in 1992 with its Initial Public Offering a year later. Since then, it maintains Singapore's largest ever IPO (SingTel 2011).

The Singapore telecoms market was fully liberalised in April 2000 (SingTel 2011).

Despite successful listing in the early 1990s, Singapore Telecommunications

(SingTel) has encountered various issues as well as strong competitions over the years, particularly from M1 and StarHub (Telecommunication Insight 2006). Issues faced are as follows:

1. Rivalry from Other Local Telecommunications Companies

In 1998, a consortium led by Singapore Technologies Telemedia won its fixed-line license bid and established StarHub Holdings. The new company included several prominent telecommunications providers such as British Telecommunications, Nippon Telecommunications and Telephone Corp. As such, StarHub became SingTel's first competitors in the fixed fixed-line telecommunications sector (Cohen 2006). In a short span of 1 year, the company managed to wrestle a significant part of the lucrative International Direct Dialling (IDD) market as well as the large corporate business segment away from SingTel. The competition on was so strong that SingTel suffered losses in market share and operating profits in the subsequent years (Singh, Pangarkar & Heracleous 2010).

Despite the competitive environment, SingTel continues to maintain its leadership position in the Singapore market.