A
Our management team is dedicated to delivering operational excellence and improved profitability. In the coming year, we will focus our marketing on professional young adults, who represent the high value segment of the market and who - according to independent research - are most likely to adopt our more advanced mobile data products. Customer retention is central to our strategy, and we have been successful in reversing the customer loss of recent years by loyalty and upgrade schemes. A restructuring programme, resulting from changing marketing conditions, has seen our workforce scaled down to 6,100 people.
B
As the only network operator in the country, our marketing is aimed at expanding the size of the market. In the business sector, we have targeted small and medium-sized businesses by offering standardised services, and large customers by offering tailored telecommunications solutions. We have been at the fore- front of introducing new telecommunications technology and services and have recently distributed 150 of our most advanced handsets to customers to assess the likely demand for advanced data services. Last year, the industry recognised our achievement when we won a national award for technological progress.
C
A new management team has driven our improved performance here. It is committed to bringing the business into profitability within three years after reaching break-even point in the next financial year. We are focused on delivering rising levels of customer service and an improvement in the quality and utilisation of our network. Good progress has been made on all these fronts. The cost of acquiring new subscribers has been reduced and new tariffs have been introduced to encourage greater use of the phone in the late evening.
D
We have continued to expand our network in a cost-efficient manner and have consolidated our retail section by combining our four wholly-owned retail businesses into a single operating unit. We expect this to enhance our operational effectiveness and the consistency of our service. Our ambition is to give customers the best retail experience possible. We were, therefore, delighted earlier this year when we won a major European award for customer service. This was particularly pleasing to us as we have always given high priority to customer satisfaction and operational excellence.
E
Here, we are focused on continuously realising cost efficiencies as well as improving the level of customer satisfaction and retention. We have already taken effective measures to reduce customer loss and to strengthen our delivery of customer service. The quality of our network has improved significantly over the past year and an increase in the utilisation of our network is now a priority. The operation of our customer service centre has been outsourced to a call centre specialist and this has led to a substantial increase in the level of service.