TORONTO – While Rogers Communications posted a tough Q4 with wireless growth and profit down significantly, new CEO Guy Laurence spoke publicly for the first time on Wednesday since taking over the position in December.
On the results themselves, Laurence said the company simply must improve. “There are areas of strength, but overall they are not satisfactory to me and over time I expect to do better,” he told the conference call with financial analysts Wednesday morning after the release of the Q4 2013 and full year results.
Right now, he added, he is about half-way through his plan to visit all regions Rogers operates in, listening to its employees, customers and other stakeholders to get a handle on the challenges facing the company and what he plans to do to reverse its recent slide.
“Once I’ve completed the exercise, I’ll outline a detailed strategy and business plan road map and agree that with the board in May,” he explained. “After that, we’ll start to operationalize it with my management team and we’ll articulate that more broadly to you with the specific priorities and focuses and what we’re going to be doing going forward.
“Whilst the industry faces the challenge of moderating growth and regulatory uncertainty, few industries are more dynamic and better at leveraging new technologies than ours,” Laurence added. “Our margins, cash flows and return on assets are strong, but we’ve slipped in terms of our growth rate relative to our peers and we need to execute in an even more methodical and disciplined manner as we go forward and look at ways of closing that gap.”
“We have opportunities to put our customers needs more front and centre in everything we do, to deliver a better, more consistent experience. I think we can strengthen our value proposition and differentiation and have opportunities to better align and focus our investments in key areas to help re-accelerate our growth.
“Winning, in my experience, always comes down to disciplined execution, rigorous prioritization, and operational excellence. And to get there, you’ll see a lot of focus around us clarifying accountability, and strengthening our teams at all levels of the company. So stay tuned, more to come.”
Later Wednesday, during a conference call with senior management and members of the media, we asked the following question about the over-the-top video portal the company is reportedly working on, called “Showmi” – something we detailed in January in an exclusive report here. This is what we asked: “Can you comment at all on the progress you’re making with this over-the-top Netflix/Hulu-type portal – whether or not you’re making progress with negotiations with the studios, whether you’re moving forward towards an April launch and whether or not you’re making any progress in negotiations on partnerships in bringing Shaw, Bell or Cineplex into the deal.”
Rogers Media president Keith Pelley answered: “Thanks very much for your continued interest in what is a hot topic. It’s safe to say we have had internal dialogue for a number of months on this topic. Nothing has been definitively decided at this particular time and when we have more information to disclose and where we are headed with this product then certainly we will let you know at that time.”
