Email

Print

Jules Vasquez reporting
The new brand is Digi - and it's the single flagship name and logo under which BTL will now offer all its services.

Rocus Schriber, CEO - BTL
"We are the company that is now building fiber to the home. We are going to deliver ICT services. We are delivering cloud computing and we are expanding internationally. For the first time we are selling to our neighboring countries. So this is the right time for us to look at what will be the name for these new services. What will be the umbrella brand that will make it easy to recognize that these services belong together and they are all coming from the same source. All these services rely on digital technology and therefore Digi."

The single umbrella offers some flexibility as BTL enters a future where it will be offering customers a host of diversified services - so diverse, it's not even sure what they are:

Rocus Schriber, CEO - BTL
"Our ambition is to offer all possible services that our customers are asking for. So it does not stop on quadruple threat or a triple threat - there are other things that customers need. They need education. They need remote working. So it be quintuple threat, octuplet threat. I mean we can go into as many as the customers need. Infinity and beyond. Thank you."

And that's the infinity sign on the logo - which expresses the company's ambition:

Marconi Leal, Deputy Chief Sales and Marketing
"Our new brand and strategic direction will stand out. They will highlight our strength and define our future."

But, the fact is, the future of telecommunications is undefinable and the landscape ever changing:

Rocus Schriber, CEO - BTL
"10 years ago our competitor was across the street. It was a company that was employing people in Belize. It was a company that was paying taxes in Belize. It was a company that was following Belizean laws. Now our competitors are out there and they have access in here. Now that a kind of scary picture, because facebook is our competitor. Asymmetrical warfare. It's a beautiful picture because 10 years ago we knew exactly who our customers are. It was the less than 300,000-400,000 people in Belize. But just like they can reach in, we can reach out. With Belizeans, with the networks that we offer can reach out. So now our customers are the billions of people."

But at the end of the day, the only billions BTL's shareholders care about is on the bottom line - and BTL's profits have been steadily slipping:

Rocus Schriber, CEO - BTL
"That is a worldwide trend. the more services you bring and the more competitive the environment is, the more affordable you have to become the more competitive you as a supplier have to be and therefore the margins for operator globally are going down and we are living in the same environment as our competitors globally. Therefore our margins are going down. However, our revenue has been growing."

And now shareholders hope that the DIGI branding will be enough to position BTL for future profits as it competes in a global marketplace:

Rocus Schriber, CEO - BTL
"Our competition is not here. We don't look at who our competition is. We look at what the opportunities that we can unlock for Belizeans and for ourselves and Digi is the binding glue."

BTL will start rolling out its new Brandon Monday with billboards and signs. IT will use the uniform DIGI red across all its branding now and abandon the purple and the green it formerly used. The brand ambassadors will be TV personality William Neal and former Miss Belize Rebecca Rath.