John Linton
I've spent most of the time since I returned from holidays looking at the career development of all Exetel personnel in conjunction with reviewing the development of the company over the coming three years.
Exetel has always planned two years ahead in some detail with planning for the third year not given a great deal of thought. The time seems to have come where a little more thought needs to be put in to three years ahead although the uncertainties that now seem to be proliferating in every aspect of Exetel's current and future planned activities make this even more difficult than in the past.
Exetel's previous plans have suffered from the major disruptions of dis-entanglement from the poisonous relationship with the defunct aaNet and its crazy owner in mid 2005 and a year later suffering the consequences of massive problems with the Optus ADSL1 service for three months. These events, coupled with the more usual run of road blocks and difficulties impacted on abilities to exactly meet our planned 'numbers'.
In summary we achieved the following revenues in the last 4 financial years (bearing in mind FY 2004 was only 4 and a bit months):
FY 2004 $ 1,000,000
FY 2005 $10,000,000
FY 2006 $20,000,000
FY 2007 $30,000,000
In terms of other growth we achieved the following:
From one employee, me, in January 2004 we now have 30 full time employees.
From 1 customer of our 1 service in February 2004 we now have over 60,000 users of our 10 different services.
From revenue of $5,000 in February 2004 our revenue in July 2007 was a little short of $3,000,000.
Each month from February 2004 to July 2007 our monthly revenue has increased each month.
Since January 2005 the key business ratios of:
Employees to Revenue
Employees to Number of Customers
have exceeded worldâs best practice and far exceeded the efficiencies of all other Australian ISPs.
The efficiencies that we have achieved and continue to achieve has continued to allow us to deliver on the key two objectives we started the Exetel business to achieve:
âTo deliver the highest quality of service at the lowest cost to the end customer of any communications company in Australiaâ
The objectives we have in place for the coming three years are, relatively, conservative and are solely premised on our commitment to remaining able to deliver on our companyâs objective. We must grow our revenue, and therefore our profitability, to provide career growth for our employees and to ensure that we continue to be able to buy base services and products at the lowest possible pricing.
Our base objectives for the coming three financial years are:
Year Revenue Customers Employees Services
FY 2008 $40,000,000 80,000 39 12
FY 2009 $50,000,000 100,000 48 13
FY 2010 $60,000,000 120,000 57 15
As there are so many unknowns at this time, and as I don't expect that situation to change over the coming 3 years, all of the current assumptions will be constantly reviewed - even more frequently than they have been in the past.