John Linton .....how do you manage to stay in business?
El Sol with his stated position that: "Wholesale customers are parasites" will soon pack up his millions and return to rhe USA to find his next employer having 'done a Krudd' and set a new speed record for reducing a thriving econonomy (commercial entity) to ruins but as this article in yesterday's Australian gives a sober reminder Telstra, virtually from its inception, may well have always seen ethics and legal requirements as unnecessary impediments to its own interests:
http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25414690-15306,00.html
Of course, perhaps Telstra is going to appeal the decision, it seems to use the appeal process as a mandatory method of ensuring its competitors spend as much money as possible and wait as long as possible while attempting to address what they believe are predatory/incorrect actions by Telstra, so perhaps some appeal judges will find that this apparently totally unethical and just plain illegal behaviour by Telstra was a flight of whimsey by the Federal Court judge on an 'off' day and Telstra's reputation, which it sojealous about guarding, remains unsullied and stays the 'colour' it has always been..
If Telstra either doesn't appeal or its appeal is not upheld then what is there to make of the sort of management that must have existed within Telstra between 1993 and 2000? It can hardly be 'a once off error' for Telstra Wholesale to have provided Telstra retail with detailed information about Optus business numbers for an 8 year period now can it? It was, if it in fact proves to be the case after any appeal, only be a deliberate attempt, over an extended period of time, by both Telstra Wholesale and Telstra Retail to continually act completely unethically and completely illegally.
The obvious conclusion, as is always the case, is that "and this is just one instance that has been prosecuted and ruled on by a Federal Court judge". If this unethical and illegal behaviour is so entrenched and endemic that it has apparently been shown to have been perpetrated over an 8 year period in this instance why would anyone believe that this lack of ethics and illegal behaviour was 'magically' restricted to the instances of this particular law suit rather than being indicative of a culture within Telstra that was endemic in every aspect of the treatment of wholesale customer operational information?
Only a truly naive person would think that was the case.
Not that it means anything in reality (other than Optus, in this instance, might get some financial relief - after almost 20 years of operational disadvantage) as cultures of commercial entities don't get changed by the occasional legal set back and if there is a culture of unethical behaviour and disregard for the law within any entity that has gone on for 20 years it has, in such a time frame, infected every 'department' and person which/who has been involved over that time and all of the people that they have become involved with. So all of Telstra's whoesale customers have had to cope with 'playing 5 card draw poker with all their cards face up' and the fact they are, mostly, still in business means that Telstra's other policies (of charging sky high prices as an example) has allowed them to survive but has ensured they make less money than they may have been able to otherwise have done......one of the reasons, perhaps, for that oft quoted figure (that I can't remember seeing any evidence for) that Telstra has 70% of the Australian telecommunications business but makes 90% of the Australian telecommunications profits.
One day things may change but business is all about dealing with the 'status quo' and not complaining about 'fairness' - change what you can and don't bitch about what you can't - it's childish. As Arnie, in his Mr Kimble character, once said - "Stop whining".
I looked through the April figures last night (and the May bill run) and see no changes to the Exetel business which is showing continued growth at pretty much the planned levels across almost all service/product categories. If the 'recesssion' is 'beginning to bite' there's nothing in our operating figures that indicates that is the case - at least not that I can see. I would like to see more growth in HSPA but we will need to make much more effort for that to happen and I remain pleasantly surprised at the continuing growth of the VoIP businesses. I was also surprised at last month's profit wich was far higher than planned (better that way than the reverse but still not desirable) and have yet to work out why that was.
I have little doubt that things will get worse generally and they may well get worse for Exetel (the court ruling referenced at the start of this entry is a timely reminder that you cannot ever take anything for granted in business). So perhaps the 'brick wall' is around the next metaphorical corner and we will have to make some drastic changes to our current plans....I have no idea....it all looks OK to me at the moment.