John Linton I read this earlier this morning:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704190704575489952073260626.html?mod=WSJ_Tech_LEFTTopNews
and while it may not seem to be of any real relevance to the issues we are confronting in our very minor way it serves as a reminder that a 'business strategy' that serves any company well, and however immensely successful it may have been, reaches an end date eventually. Vodafone is an enormous business success story almost since its creation - measured against any criteria -but the final arbiter of success for public companies, the stock market, regards Vodafone as barely an also ran these day; even though it has more customers in more countries than any other mobile carrier can come close to.
I think it has been evident for some two years now that Exetel's initial business 'strategy' (if you can call it that) is well past its use by date. We recognised this some two years ago so we aren't totally stupid but our efforts to move to a different strategy have been not as fast to implement as we would have liked and that has given us continual problems as all changing markets are unforgiving in the relentless pressures they bring to bear on small businesses when the 'tectonic plates' of business direction exert their massive influences. Perhaps hyperbolic but real enough in trying to describe how any business, even one as large as Vodafone gets to feel when they haven't changed fast enough to meet the realities of changing markets.
OBVIOUSLY THROUGH MY INCOMPETENCE I LOST THE LAST 5 PARAGRAPHS WHEN I WROTE THEM EARLIER THIS MORNING.
SO I RETYPED A DIFFERENT VERSION OF THEM A FEW MINUTES AGO.
THEY HAVE ALSO 'DISAPPEARED'
I HAVE GIVEN UP.