John Linton
How time flies when you're having fun.....or being deluged with dealing with so many issues and so many more details the years go by in a blur. Exetel is a few weeks away from completing four years as a communications provider and the challenges (what a pointless euphemism for problems) don't seem to be diminishing. I've just about completed the planning for the next four years, at least in terms of the things that can be planned, but Exetel is now faced with some huge decisions - at least huge to us and certainly huge in terms of the 'size' of previous decisions.
Having made such a hash of two major decisions in Exetel's first four years, I'm very hesitant about taking three "make or break" decisions that now seem necessary to make over the coming months. It's no comfort to me when I review the circumstances and information I had at my disposal when I made the last two decisions that nearly ended Exetel's existence (and certainly adversely affected its growth). Given the information and circumstances I would make the same decisions today - but they were both horribly incorrect and have severely damaged Exetel and me, personally, when I come to think about it.
The decision on whether or not to use Exetel MSANs in a limited number of exchanges or build an equivalent wireless network is both a large financial decision (for a small company like Exetel) and highly speculative (if not downright dangerous) in terms of evaluating the shorter term directions of what Telstra will decide, and the timeframe of implementation, regarding FTTH or even FTTN.
The decision on whether to proceed with the purchase of a CBD property to consolidate our current North Sydney office space and the Data Centre rack space we currently rent from Powertel and Verizon is also a significant commitment of our limited financial resources. While it makes perfect sense in a spread sheet the current technology uncertainties complicate the 'investment strategy' quite significantly.
The third decision that needs to be made is to decide whether we will continue to fund any large expenditures from our personal resources (and the company's cashflow/profits) or whether we will accept investment from a third party - or perhaps allow a third party to buy Exetel completely and go and do something else.
With a planned revenue of $A40 million in this financial year the company is at that uncomfortable size - just too big to be run as a small/medium company and not big enough to be run as medium/large sized commercial entity.
In my observation and experience this time of a company's life is easily the most difficult and, from my two previous personal experiences, easily the least enjoyable and least satisfying.
The upcoming election complicates all of these decisions and, wimp out or not, I decided overnight that it would be really stupid to make any large financial decisions until after the election has been decided and some understanding has been formed as to what the result, either way, means to businesses like Exetel's. In the event the electorate decides to throw away the best living conditions in a hundred years and elect a Labour government then we will abandon any consideration of the first two major decisions for at least 12 months and probably wind back our plans for Exetel to a scale a little smaller than the current operation. We would probably be more inclined to sell Exetel entirely if there is a Labour government after the election.
What we will do, if we do have to put the current development plans on hold, is to go to "Plan B" and achieve growth by moving from being a web based communications services provider (predominantly to residential and small business customers) to providing communications 'solutions' to medium and large businesses. That will take time, hence the slow down/retreat from the current objectives but it will be a lot safer and, it is something that I spent most of my business life doing before I became interested in the Internet - and if I remember correctly; I did it very successfully.
Something to put more thought into over the weekend.