The BeginningFollowing a US conference held in late 1998, a group of leading International Telecom industry & I.T. consultants discussed the concept of a 'one stop shop' information solution. This 'solution' would be designed specifically for new and emerging US carriers, ISP's and ASP's planning to expand their operation into Europe. It was also anticipated that a similar facility would be required within a very short period of time for European players as they moved into the US and Asian markets.At this time Telecommunications Consultancy was a start-up pre-requisite due to the lack of experienced personnel available within the industry, it was also the single largest expense faced by start-up propositions. By combining all the participating consultants relevant information into a central data-base managed by a dedicated information management team, substantial time and effort savings could be made when sourcing network capacity, expertise, co-lo space, switch port management or in fact any other of the many specialist areas of 'Telco' operations, thus bringing down the actual financial cost of such research.It was agreed that if this concept could be achieved to the mutual benefit of all concerned a 'time for equity' proposition should also be offered. This facility was to be made available if and when, 'a start-up' opportunity was deemed to justify the investment. The final part of the solution was to set-up a mutually managed 'small cap' investment fund, specifically utilised for the sponsorship of new and innovative companies. Agreement was reached between 8 consultants and International Telecommunications Consultancy S.A. (ITC S.A) was set up on the 29th of April 1999 as the operating company, with Innovative Investment Trust (IIT) as the V.C. fund and holding company.In ReviewThat was nearly 7 years ago, our consultant numbers have increased to 30 and our original thoughts and ideas have been tested many times. We have made many investments ranging from purely financial to 'equity for management' or a combination of both and have built and sold businesses ranging from Global Network Leasing companies to small specialist I.N. platforms, SMSC Gateways and Virtual Voip operations.Following the meltdown of our sector in 2002/3 our consultants have been extremely busy in the restructuring of International carriers and the creation of 'core business' operations, but throughout all the changes experienced our philosophy has remained the same.2005 theoretically brought a new profit perspective to conventional Telecommunications in Europe, Asia and the USA. The advent of CPS in 2004 saw European third party operators scramble for new customer ownership only to realise 12 months later that the customer acquisition costs were unsustainable and market churn bringing about a rash of 'sell off's' incurring certain players with large losses by the end of 2005. U.S. mobile operators continued to argue with the Regulators attempting to play "pacman" with the goal of lower cost bases and lower customer acquisition costs. All were aggressively seeking more content and customer retention mechanisms to deliver that "Holiest of Grails" real profit.In the unreal world we saw EBay purchase our favourite Voip player 'Skype' for what some industry pundits describe as an 'Unreal price for an un-synergistic fit'.Going Forward2006 sees the European regulators pushing for more MVNO's to lift market competition; new 3G deployments and larger customer take up. The music industry didn't get the anticipated revenues from RBT's in 2005 as platform deployment and carrier uptake has been a lot slower than expected but some growth in this sector is forecast for 2006/7 and ITC will be at the forefront facilitating growth in all mobile sectors throughout the year.Major Telco's implemented VOIP as a delivery mechanism in an effort to stem customer migration and 2006 will see Carriers such as Telstra UK offering a fully functional commercial product to its resellers, the first of many we suggest.Following protracted negotiations with European PPP's (Preferred Payment Partners) December 2005 saw the eventual signing of a partnership agreement that will allow us to commence roll out of our SMSC Pre-Pay Top up platform in conjunction with Alphyra. In the meantime the stand-alone product "I Point" has continued to grow in Malta and now has some 100,000 customers using the service. Obviously there have been many performance increases and different products added to the offering during last year which means we now have a stronger and more flexible product to go out with in 2006.Following our company relocation to Dubai in July 2004, we carried out E Commerce research and development work for various Middle Eastern and E.U. accession countries. This lead to the formation in 2005 of a new ITC E. Commerce Division specialising in Enterprise Portal construction, management and operation. This service has traded successfully in 2005 showing constant growth and obtaining repeat business. This year sees the service being offered throughout Asia primarily aimed at smaller states and countries specifically operating in the Tourism and Business Enterprise sectors.July 2005 also saw the creation of our Agricultural and Building Division. Offering Specialist Public Relations, Site Investigation, Strategy, Design and Development we anticipate strong growth in this sector during 2006, particularly from our Asian, North African and Mediterranean client base.So in conclusion, we go forward in 2006 with anticipation and excitement - We wish all our clients and consultants an extremely happy, productive and profitable year, coupled of course with good health and fitness.
