John Linton
....and it isn't based on someone playing an old JPY single too loud next door.
I had trouble sleeping last night so I gave up trying and got up and watched the UK Premier League double header which saw Manchester field a very odd side at Craven Cottage (due to injury) and lose convincingly in the most lack lustre display I have ever seen them put in followed by a similarly hesitantly low key effort by Arsenal which fortunately went unpunished. I only mention this (not because I assume my lack of sleep is of any interest to anyone) but because the sloppy and hesitant performance of two incredibly good and consistently excellent football teams seemed to mirror my own hesitancy and lack of decisiveness lately - one of the reasons I couldn't sleep. So watching back to back really annoying soccer games didn't help.
As the protagonist in Fever Pitch once said at the end of that very funny book "I don't know whether life is crap because Arsenal's crap or whether Arsenal are crap because life is crap" but it was weirdly like that in the early hours of this morning - and it's OK - I know that really isn't the case. Life definitely isn't crap for either me or for Exetel at the moment and in many ways it's as good as either of them have ever been. We have had a really good six months in almost every aspect of the business and personally I have had a really enjoyable six months in every aspect of family interactions and personal pursuits. I am not, in any way, an alarmist and fearfulness of the unknown isn't something I have ever concerned myself with always assuming that I can deal with any circumstance that may present itself better than anyone else I have ever met - as a very senior manager at IBM once wrote in an annual review a very long time ago: "...not the best strategist in the company but he is easily the most brilliant tactician we have at the moment".
......and yet.....
I don't feel 'in my bones' that things are as good as any rational analysis of all the available figures says they are - and that is a feeling that is both disturbing and hard to get rid of. I can rationalise it away as all sensible people do - 'time of year', 'unsettled weather', 'upcoming break'...and as many other cliches as I could be bothered to list..but it is not any of those thongs nor is it all of those things in 'concert'. What I believe it could be is a fundamental change in many aspects of the telecommunications industry that no-one has consciously brought in to being and certainly no-one knows how they will play out. No, I haven't become a convert to 'New Age" stupidity and I very definitely am not an 'Old Age' "the end of the world is at hand" subscriber (all organised, or disorganised, religion to me is an affront to common sense).
Irrationally, or rationally depending on your point of view, I find it disturbing that Telstra should find themselves so radically revising their revenue forecasts downwards only five months in to the planning year. It is impossible for me to comprehend what could have happened in so short a period to necessitate such a radical downgrade. I don't give a damn about Telstra's results of themselves and, like many people in this industry probably are pleased that a monopolist can finally be reaping some minor reward for their bullying and over charging, but I am deeply concerned that they now see the rest of this financial year in such bleak terms. Obviously not because how it negatively affects Telstra but how it may affect Exetel. Perhaps it was Ross Gittins comments here:
http://www.smh.com.au/business/anaemia-diagnosis-wont-stall-recovery-20091218-l5rm.html
that sum up my equivocation. He makes the case that things are better in the economy than the bald statistics indicate and goes on to try and show why. I read, and then re-read, his logic as carefully as I'm capable of doing (which isn't that great) but the two Telstra articles in Saturday's Fin Review (pps 12 and 20) tell such a different story - why, if the economy is going to pick up would Telstra make such a goose of itself by unequivocally stating in public that it isn't going to from their perspective? I don't believe Telstra is 'crying wolf' and will then astound their shareholders by delivering the originally forecast revenue growth - that would be nonsensical with their half year results due to be delivered before the end of January which will presumably indicate what they are now fore shadowing....if those results don't do that then Telstra is going to do more than LOOK like a total goose.....they are going to get a pretty harshly worded 'please explain' from the ASX.
All of the other 'signs' I see from the larger Australian communications companies contribute to my uneasiness; from the almost hysterical levels of saturation advertising across every conceivable type of media to the knee jerk reactions observable just about everywhere. They are not signs of a set of companies achieving their planned objectives - to me, they appear to be demonstrating a whole series of companies not only not meeting their objectives but a whole lot of companies indicating they currently don't know how to re-set and then meet a new set of objectives. If that is the case then it is going to be very difficult to predict what is going to happen over the coming months - let alone how to deal with it.
I suppose that's why I couldn't sleep last night. Maybe being a better tactician than a strategist will be a bonus in such situations where so many strategies seem to be in disarray?