John Linton
I met yesterday with one of the two suppliers that we have been considering for MSANs in some capital city metro areas to advise them that we would be deferring proceeding with their proposal until at least February of next year, and depending on what transpires between the new Federal Government and Telstra we may not proceed at all. I decided to do this in person as I'd known the CEO of the company for over 30 years and felt bad about wasting so much of their time.
They were disappointed but more understanding than I had expected (they had put a great deal of work in to the proposal and discussions over several months) but said that they had expected the deferral and two other proposals they were working on had been similarly been put on hold. We had a 'Christmas' drink of a very nice 20 year old single malt I'd never heard of (in their beautifully appointed board room) and wished each other well for the coming year.
Before I'd driven back to the office I had a call from the sales person who had done most of the contact work saying that would I reconsider the decision to defer the project if they could find a way of reducing the purchase price "substantially" and deferring all payments for six months and if there were any adverse actions by Telstra/the new government in that time they would accept return of the equipment with no charges made and they would also pay out any Telstra rental early termination charges.
To say I was surprised would be a massive understatement, I was totally overwhelmed, so I thanked the sales person, explained that I was still driving, and said that I'd get back in touch with them later in the week.
I'm still bewidered at both the speed of the changed offer and the magnitude of discount to the pricing and the unbelievably generous payment and cancellation terms. Having thought about the implications over night I'm still completely baffled as to why such a rapid change in a pretty serious, at least for Exetel, business proposal could/would be made and in such an informal manner. Presumably its a very minor deal for the supplier concerned in terms of money and they must be very confident that there is no real chance of the equipment being returned. Even so the deferred payment and the almost 25% price discount seem quite extraordinary.
Perhaps its yet another sign of increasing age bringing less confidence because, 'in the old days', I think I wouldn't have hesitated to accept such a favourable 'negotiation win' and would have turned the car round and gone back and signed up without a second thought. Now - I'm not sure that I will do that and, in fact, it's made me so uncertain that I can't even think what the right decision making process is to make a sensible decision.
Looking at the new numbers it is a 'no brainer' and it removes all of the costs of a six month ramp up period to transfer and gain enough customers to reach a comfortable ROI; but.......
Maybe it's time for Exetel to have a decision maker that doesn't look gift horses in the mouth and has the confidence to make major decisions based on thoughtful analysis and sensible assessments?
I think I'm beginning to lose those abilities.