Helping Customers and Vendors Communicate Better: KWAK Telecom

Anyone who has purchased a product or wished to avail a service either online or from a brick and mortar outlet most likely has encountered the need to call customer service. Customer services help the customers with a wide range of possible difficulties that may or may not pop up. The number is usually a long toll-free number that companies provide for their customers to contact customer support. While most companies provide a highly reliable premium-rate telephone number for local customers, international customers often have a hard time getting reliable support.

A company headquartered in Cyprus has come up with an innovative business model to provide domestic as well as international premium rates for businesses. KWAK Telecom Ltd was founded by a visionary entrepreneur who realized the market for his company’s services after long years of experience in the fields of billing and invoicing.

In conversation with the founder and Chairman of KWAK Telecom, Gottfried Schrempf:

 Q.How did you recognize the market for your services?

In my previous occupations, I had the chance to gain a lot of experience in the fields of billing and invoicing. Back then, I realized that there were proper domestic solutions available but hardly any international ones. So I sat down with my brother in law, Ludwig Braum, and we decided to give it a try.

Q.Please tell about your company’s first offering?

We have started in 2004 with a portfolio of domestic premium rate numbers but went into the international premium rates later on. For us, it seemed obvious that if the media market goes international, the payment methods for content needed to work on an international level. It was surprisingly successful. Especially, our international number portfolio was an immediate success. We attracted media and content providers as well as telecom arbitrageurs who used the numbers as termination points. The real difficulties happened to be on the carrier side.

It was pretty tough convincing established telcos to assign us numbers for premium rate used. Many people were linking premium rate services with all sorts of fraud and therefore, we had a lot of convincing and reputation building to do in order to be recognized as strategic partners with a convincing proposition.

Q.What were the initial challenges faced by your firm?

Like any start-up, we have faced a lot of issues in the beginning. There were times when we were lacking liquidity and had to juggle with the resources we had. We had to identify talented individuals who we thought were able to develop the business in a global market. In 2013, we had to deal with the shut-down of banking in Cyprus for weeks and months which meant a serious problem for a payment-provider such as KWAK. So, I think on our way there were many obstacles, challenges, and problems. But dealing with those and solving them at the end of the day is exactly what entrepreneurship means.

Q.What aspects would you list as being your organization’s biggest assets?

It’s our reputation. In a payment business, it’s all about trust. It’s our people. Because they are the ones who deal with our clients, execute strategies, and are at the forefront of all our activities. Without the best people, we cannot be the best firm. It’s our capital. Because as a payment provider our clients have to be sure that we will be able to pay them again and again. And that’s why we are keen to build and maintain a fortress balance sheet. It’s our ability to innovate. Because the world of telecoms does not stand still and if we are not able to stay at the strategic frontier of our markets, we’ll become obsolete. And last but not least, it’s our passion for the job and the joy of supporting and solving a client’s issue. That’s what drives us.

Q.Are there any vital events or decisions that have influenced your company’s current position?

One of the key strategies to achieve superior performance was assembling a superior team of high potentials from all over the world. Ludwig Braum, my co-founder, and I understood the necessity to hire an external manager with broad experience to take care of the groundwork to engineer the structure of our organization. That’s why we hired Josef Bruckschloegl, who started with KWAK as Chief Operating Officer in 2009 and is running the firm since 2013 as its Chief Executive. A great decision because Ludwig and I could focus on the vision and the main strategy while Josef executed and applied them to the organization.

Q.What is the structure of your organization today?

We are still a boutique firm with only 20 people in three offices. Our headquarters in Nicosia, Cyprus, our office in Freilassing, Germany and a small sales office in Fuqing City near Shenzen in China. In terms of our economic impact, we are bigger and currently are running approximately an equivalent of 1.4% of the entire exports of Cyprus.

Q.Where do you see your company a few years from now?

I guess the influence of Value Added Services on telecommunication markets are going to expand and therefore we hope that we continue the path of growth we have taken the previous years. I am optimistic that we have built a team that will face future challenges with the needed agility and competence and I am convinced that we have built relations based on trust and reputation that will mean the foundation of success in the future as they’ve been so far.

KWAK’s core markets are Asia, the Middle East, and Africa and we recognize further growth in those markets. We are ready and prepared to benefit on that development.

Know the Maverick Founder of KWAK Telecom, Gottfried Schrempf

Gottfried Schrempf is educated as an engineer and serves as chairman of KWAK Telecom Ltd., CEO of the UK based wholesale carrier SCHREGO Communications Ltd and the CEO of SCHREGO Communications GmbH, an Austrian investment, and software development company. Mr. Schrempf held several management positions in industry and media before entering entrepreneurship. In 2004 he founded KWAK Telecom Ltd. together with his brother in law, Ludwig Braum. Since then, Mr. Schrempf was a key driver in the development and the market penetration of international premium rate numbers and their acceptance as a micropayment tool within the global telecom community.

“Grow your business with your very own INTERNATIONAL PREMIUM NUMBER”