Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) CEO Leon Williams has been advised by a former BTC executive to "focus on his areas of competency" and not "rip up the script" at the telecoms company, as the ex-employee said he disagreed with Williams' recent assessment that BTC is in a "dire spot" ahead of liberalization.Marlon Johnson, former vice president of marketing and sales at BTC, who left the post last month after seven years, said he diverges in opinion from Williams who recently told The Nassau Guardian that BTC is in a "do or die situation" in advance of the introduction of competition in the telecommunications market.Johnson said he believes BTC can and will "hold its own" in a liberalized market."So I think when people look at the current struggles and figure, 'oh boy, BTC's going to be in a lot of trouble', I am not one of those people... As a former employee, someone who invested a lot of himself in the company, I feel confident that the wrongs will be righted and the company will compete. If the company stays on the trajectory it's on, it will be able to meet a lot of the challenges."Williams had stated that he felt the jobs of over 700 BTC employees are at risk in light of looming competition, pointing out that there is much to be done. Johnson said; "I don't agree with Mr. Williams at all in that assessment. My admonishment to anyone in senior positions in any company is you have to be very circumspect in what you say. Jobs are obviously at risk if the company does not perform, but I think where I would disagree with Mr. Williams is that I don't paint a gloom and doom picture of where the company is today. I think that's a disservice to the hard work that has been done by the employees, to the work that has been done in bringing BTC up to standard."That's where I think I would diverge with him in opinion; no, the company is not in a dire spot, the company is in a fairly good spot and there are things that can be improved and must be improved to be successful, but a lot has transpired in the five years since he would have left and it's important to acknowledge that and to give the credit to the team members who made all of that happen," added Johnson.The former executive pointed to the expansion of BTC's retail footprint, the increase in data customers, the implementation of 4G and LTE technology and the growth in the company's broadband base, as among some of the company's stand-out achievements in recent years."There's been a lot of good stories with BTC and I think the tendency has been to try to diminish the accomplishments that have been made, and I don't think that's a good starting point. I think if you are going to build credibility among your peers and gain their confidence you have to speak to the successes while acknowledging the challenges that are there and build on them," added Johnson.Williams joined BTC as CEO in June. In an interview with The Nassau Guardian in late July, he said that BTC is facing challenges going into liberalization in the areas of customer satisfaction, staff productivity, its network, price levels and revenue. "The company is not ready from a network perspective, from an employee perspective, from a growth in revenue perspective," said Williams, who had previously worked as CEO at BTC until he was terminated in 2008. BTC later settled with him following a lawsuit in 2011.Johnson said: "You look at the struggles BTC has with capacity at present. Obviously there's more demand than there is capacity in the market and the plan has been to change that. The company has invested more than $20 million this year in improving the plant and a lot of that is going to be invested in New Providence and in Grand Bahama, where there's a lot of congestion issues. I think once the plant element settles down, BTC will have the largest footprint of any competitor in the market from Inagua to Grand Bahama, and the company has been working on a very intense plan to prepare for competition."So I think when people look at the current struggles and figure, 'oh boy, BTC's going to be in a lot of trouble', I am not one of those people. And I think BTC will be able to hold its own in a competitive environment."Johnson advised Williams to build on what is already in place at BTC."I think if he sticks to the plan and brings some sort of laser precision in his areas of competency which is the technical side I think we can start to see some of these things ramped up really, really quickly. And that to me is key: Can you build on the successes in place and not sort of rip up the script and start over in places where you really don't need to start over?"

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