My first question would be regarding the history and evolution of PTT Serbia. Could you introduce PTT Serbia as a company to our readers?
PTT Serbia is a public enterprise that is at the moment a holding company. We are 100% owners of Serbian post. We are 51% owners of Telecom Serbia, 49% owners of Mobtel, which is a mobile telecommunication provider in Serbia and around 83% owners of Postal Saving Bank. That is how PTT Serbia is structured.
When did the company begin its first operations in Serbia and how did it develop?
PTT Serbia the way it is formed today was structured in 1996. Before that postal and telecommunication services were together. In 1996 we separated postal services from telecommunication services. And at that time the contract with Greek and Italian partners (OTE & Stet) was signed to sell 49% of telecommunications of Serbia to those organizations.
In one of your recent statements you said that your first aim during this year would be to bring the level of postal services to the level of the European Union. Is this correct?
I think you are putting it as a too ambitious project. I do not think that we can do that within one year. I think we can approach to the standards of European Union within this year. Before this meeting I had a meeting with people from Canada Post International that are here to evaluate our potential to implement track and trace system for international and national transport of postal parcels and letters.
What new services do you plan to implement this year?
I think that this year if we implement track and trace that will be really good for Serbian post. That will allow us to connect with other postal organizations in the neighborhood and in the future we can become one system that will join European Union without problems. There are other projects that we are working on and that we will try to implement this year. Another project that we are going to work on together with other organizations in Serbia is address translation, which means that we need to develop a new system of postal codes. That will not help only the Serbian post to deliver parcels easier and quicker to its customers, but it is also going to help, for example, revenue of Serbia to implement its tax procedures in a modern way, in a way it is organized in Western countries. It is also going to help some other government organizations to keep track of their business in a modern way.
There are news that PTT Serbia will be focusing on developing services for TV and Internet. Could you comment on that?
In our system we are developing cable distribution system. It will be a system that is going to be used for a cable TV and high speed Internet. In the future it can be used for other services as well. It is going to be in essence, an optical network all around the country, which we intend to build with some other government organizations. Within cities we are going to develop infrastructure that is going to allow us to bring into every home a high quality TV signal and high quality and high speed Internet. There are other systems that can compete with this one. For example, wireless Internet, but we decided to go this way at this time. Maybe we will consider some other technology in the future when it comes.
In the past there have been some problems with the development of your human resources due to the high degree of specialization required. How are you going to manage this issue?
That is the biggest problem that we currently have in this company. Year 2002 is going to be a year when we are going to train our managers to evaluate work of their employees, to use technology in a better way, to reorganize technology, to adopt western standards into our system. We are also going to train our people to behave in a competitive way, because the era of monopoly is gone and we need to compete with other providers on this market for customers. So, we are going to educate them how to do that and how to treat our customer respectively and in a better way than they did before.
Are you going to get foreign help with that issue?
Of course. At the moment we have three our trainees in training in Canada for sales professional training and sales coaching. Three our trainers will train than our people within our organization and introduce them to this kind of knowledge during this year.
You are in close cooperation with Canadian post. Could you comment on that?
Canadian post was the most active and they are partners that can be a pride to every postal organization in the world. They have so many partners all around the globe and I think they may be the only postal organization that has a business unit to help other postal organizations in the world. Their help is very appreciated here and very well respected in this country.
| Do you have any other possibilities of international cooperation like the one with the Canadian Post?
Yes, we have visited other postal administrations in Sweden, Slovenia, Denmark and Greece and we are trying to cooperate with those postal organizations in the areas where they are the best. For example, the Swedish post has offered us help in making Yugoslav postal legislation close to European standards. In the future when Yugoslavia becomes a candidate to become a member of European Union, we will not have to change our legislation, our laws, so we can proceed without hesitation in that way.
All these new comings they all need funds and investments. How do you plan to work on that? From where are you going to get the necessary funding?
At the moment all the projects that we are working on we are financing ourselves. Within first six months of last year our revenue was really poor and our performance as well. When a new management came into place, we have created a profit, which allows us to start this year with optimism that we can finance some of those projects ourselves before we see a foreign interest and interest of foreign investors and before they come to Serbia, we will proceed with our own resources.
What do you think is the competitive advantage of Serbian postal services? What are the characteristics that you can show to the foreign investors and that they would be really interested in?
First of all, if we decide to go with foreign investments for a certain project, it has to be beneficial for both sides. We are not just looking for financing. We will be looking for partners where we can cooperate with someone that can give us technology, knowledge and some value that we do not poses. We are not interested in receiving just credits and funds. We are interested in building a future together for our people and organization.
Postal Bank may become soon a real bank. What do you say in that respect?
Yes, our Postal Savings Bank is going to become a fully authorized bank and it will work together with postal system of Serbia, because we still have universal counters, which means that in our post offices you can do financial transactions as well as send letters and parcels, to be separated as it is in other countries of Western Europe and other countries of the world. At the moment it is together, it is joint and it is also doing a social function. As an example in other countries, it is really difficult to divide these two businesses, because in rural areas you do not have banks, presence of financial organizations, where posts have their outlets and do the service for the government. It is a burden for the postal organization, but it is doing its social function, so we have to stick to that. I think registering our postal saving bank as a fully registered bank is going to give us benefit in a way that we can commercially offer loans, credits to other organizations and probably make some money while doing that.
How do you see the Serbian post in the long run?
The Serbian PTT is going to divide into several organizations. We had some arguments with some people in Yugoslavia that would like to revive some dying business in our country. I do not think that is good and reasonable or realistic. I think we have to build new businesses, we have to be market oriented and we have to go where the customers are. The Serbian PTT has a task, has a goal to develop new business as I mentioned before, cable distribution system, cable TV, high speed Internet. Those are businesses that are not present in Yugoslavia. PTT is going to create them, to put them on their own legs, to run them as a separate financial organizations and than offer them to the free market. Apart from that we are going to build other businesses, as well and create jobs for workers that were employed in dying organizations.
Since being the General Manager of Serbian Post, what has been your biggest achievement?
I have been on this position for five months. We started to reorganize the company. I think that bringing up the people's spirit is my biggest achievement so far. For true changes we need little more time.
Reorganization is always a long process. What would be your final message to the readers of Forbes Global, who, as you know, are potential investors?
PTT Serbia is going to be much better organization in the future than it was in the past. If they have interesting projects, if they have projects, which will do well for both sides, we invite them to come to Serbia, to arrange a meeting and make a deal.
Note: World Investment News Ltd cannot be held responsible for the content of unedited transcriptions. |
