John Linton
....except when they don't.
I constantly get 'told' by a wide variety of people in a wide variety of circumstances that "you're only in business to make as much money as possible". I find it interesting that so many people who have read Exetel's articles of association in detail and , presumably read the monthly minutes of board meetings seemed to have failed to read the statements about why Exetel is in business on our web site or noticed that the pricing of every service offered by Exetel is lower than that of any other provider of a similar/identical service. I also wonder why so many people are stupid enough to make definitive statements on subjects they know nothing about - but that seems to be the prevailing condition of today's largely uneducated, 'sound bite informed' society.
Exetel is definitely planned and operated on the basis of constantly remaining profitable because if it wasn't it would quickly cease to exist. In that respect Exetel has made a small/very small profit in each year of its existence. However Exetel was 'created' to deliver any service it supplies at the lowest cost (consistent with the company remaining profitable) available in the Australian marketplace NOT to make as much money as possible for Exetel's owners. Once it became established in actually meeting its first objective the second objective of assisting some of the more threatened with extinction 'non-human' Australian residents survive was added to the company's objectives a little over two years ago by allocating approximately one third of those small profits to some community based projects dedicated to those objectives. Exetel's owners have worked in the business since it's first day of operation (putting in hours every day for almost six years that are unbelievably long by any standard) for salaries far below what they could realistically command working for any other company as part of keeping Exetel's service prices as low as possible.
I very much doubt that Exetel is 'unique' in being a company that is NOT set up and operated with the sole/major objective of making as much money for its shareholders as possible and why so many people have such a misconception is puzzling given the large number of charitable organisations and NFPOs that exist in almost every aspect of modern society. I don't regard Exetel as being somehow 'special' or deserving of any 'favourable' treatment by anyone because we choose to operate a 'business of our size' in such a way and that is certainly the case that we are not accorded any preferential treatment by our suppliers or our customers - if anything the reverse is the case in most instances. Operating a business at the lowest margins possible is much more difficult, in every way, than running a business at the highest margins possible - there is little, often no, room for many/any mistakes to be made that won't have quite severe, quite possibly 'fatal' consequences.
I don't know if Exetel could be a 'better' company if it charged more money for its services - I think the simple answer would be "yes" but then I can't see why Exetel would be in business if it just did the same as any number of other companies. While I have an adequate understanding of the concepts of capitalism and commerce and I also have a working knowledge of the concepts of 'free markets' and the role of competition in producing gargantuan wealth for many individuals such as Bill Gates and Rupert Murdoch I have never related to those sorts of capabilities or ambitions....I think you need to come from a different background to mine or, of course, have infinitely more abilities. So, perhaps like most other people we are never going to 'achieve' anything like those sorts of successes and most of us will think it a reasonable achievement to have a few laughs each day, keep a roof over our own and those dependent on us heads and playing a part in bringing up our children to be decent and caring people and, for those of us who can manage it, not to be too much of an irritation to the societies we inhabit during our life time....by no means all of us are going to get to achieve even those modest ambitions 100% of our time.
So, while doubtless there are a majority of people who pursue a business career with the ambitions of emulating a Bill Gates or a Rupert Murdoch and there are some companies that pursue maximum profit above everything else there are others who, probably because of their inadequacies, have to aspire to more modest 'returns' from the time they put in to earning a living and, in my opinion, trying to do some sort of 'good' from pursuing the work of your choice is something that is worthwhile to do.
Perhaps that is the cop out of the untalented - but then we can't all be talented.