John Linton ......the better I was.
Maybe there was actually a time when I could deal with any issue/problem/question after a few seconds consideration (if that) and with the total confidence that the decision I was making or the advice I was giving was absolutely correct and couldn't be bettered. There are times when that's the way I remember it and it now really worries me that I have become so indecisive and so timorous in making decisions over the last year or so.....perhaps I now realise that I get so many decisions wrong and give bad advice on so many occasions?
Whatever the truth really is it is becoming very obvious to me that the many decisions that Exetel now has to make on a weekly basis are far too complex for me to even begin to understand the bases on which they should be considered let alone the criteria that should be used to make them. It seems to me that I've become like all those 'senior executives' I've always despised - someone who holds a position that they don't have the knowledge or ability to realistically carry out the responsibilities required of it.
Or, maybe, like J G Ballards "Jim" character I can be accused of "thinking too much".
Or then again......
None of this helps in today's scenario of difficult financial times that are more likely than not to get more difficult and more rapid changes to technology than are easily dealt with or all the rest of the situations small companies have always faced in such situations and, it has to be admitted, so few survive.
Recessions always cause pain to a wide variety of individuals and organisations and the most vulnerable organisations are always the small and those that have too much debt. While Exetel has no debt at all it definitely is small and by definition vulnerable to the 'convulsions' that recessions bring....and irrespective what those d***heads in the ACT currently claim.....if it causes an increasing number of large and small companies to be put into receivership, house prices to fall sharply, job losses and the stock market to crash then it's a recession - stupid.
It's difficult to live in times where the largest car manufacturer in the world, General Motors, is on the brink of financial collapse and not become aware that there are events occurring that are extremely threatening to a very wide range of people and entities. You can shrug off the demise or Air Italia with a politically incorrect "what do you expect from Italians" and the effective bankruptcy of a tiny country like Iceland the same way. But if the worlds largest car maker for the past 60 years, a sovereign country and a State funded major airline (let alone almost every major airline in the US) cannot find a way through today's financial problems then you have to think very seriously about why you, personally, are capable of doing any better.
Allco (who cares about greedy financiers who didn't think a bull market would never end), Babcock and Brown (what happens when you borrow too much), ABC Learning (he probably was OK as a milkman) all spectacularly collapsing into receivership or versions of it are dismissable as the price of hubris in commerce. Pity about the employees and the creditors and the damage to everyone associated with them (including your super fund and mine). .....and bear in mind this is all happening, according to Whine and Krudd , while there is no recession.
I wonder what will happen if things ever do get bad in this country then?
I lie awake almost every night tossing and turning about decisions that I think have to be made to protect Exetel and its customers and I reach no conclusions. When I eventually give up on trying to sleep and start the day by reading the Australian, US and UK business papers and all I see is increasing concern and more dire forecasts. Are they all wrong?
Far too early to have a few Scotches and try and forget.
Not the ideal frame of mind to try to address the issues of the day.
Now, if only I could have as few problems as this company, alone among all the companies in Australia, who can report increasing margins and strong revenue growth:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,24611593-36418,00.html
How do you increase margins in a year such as this? Easy - be a monopoly.