John Linton .....is a question that has more and more become a question that has obtruded in to my thinking over the past few weeks.
It was a quiet week in the office with most Exetel people still on holidays. We used the time to finish off some odds and ends and to tidy up the work on presenting and processing the new residential ADSL plans. Some of the time was spent bringing the new sales director up to speed which will continue to take much longer given the scope of the product set and the relatively different ways we operate compared to most if not all other companies (I am not saying our ways are better but they are very different). Perhaps it was having to explain what and why we did things to someone taking over some of my responsibilities as much as the overall planning processes that have engaged all my attention over the past 2 + months that caused me to consider just what I should be doing within the Exetel business in 2011.
As we have completed the operating and business plans for the start of our eighth year in 'business' as Exetel I have had to, inevitably, review the company's overall objectives and not only in relation to the targets but as to why we do certain things in very different ways to other companies with whom we compete in the few markets in which we operate. We have spent the past seven years adhering to the base reason we started Exetel- "to provide services at the lowest cost available from any supplier in the Australian market" - and we have adhered to that objective unswervingly for the whole of the past seven years - in terms of residential ADSL and every other product or service we have offered.
Over the past 18 months or so this primary objective has become very difficult to continue to achieve and it has cost us a great deal of money to remain 'true' to that objective - in fact it has cost us so much money we have had to acknowledge that Telstra and TPG (ignoring the significant downsides of doing business with those companies) will continue to make it impossible, at least in pure residential ADSL terms, to offer the "lowest cost" residential services any longer - at least in the simplistic "dollar for gb terms" we have always done. I am not 'blaming' anyone for this situation nor complaining that it exists; just considering what to do in these circumstances. In a purely 'business' sense we decided what to do over two years ago when we saw this scenario developing. That was to switch our main foci building the future of the business on hiring a corporate sales force and applying the obective of doing our small 'bit' towards a better Australia by offering the lowest priced services of the best or better quality than any other Australian provider and, over time, build the volumes of the corporate business to a greater level than our residential business volumes.
It was, and is a pretty simplistic plan. We will have been executing it for two years come mid February and we have achieved some elements of that original plan. In February 2009 our ratio of business revenue to residential revenue was roughly 5% to 95%. Today it's roughly 18% to 82% on a total revenue growth over that time of roughly 25%.We now have 22 corporate sales personnel compared to one two years ago bringing in monthly revenues 800% - 1,000% greater than we did 2 years ago. So some very solid evidence of progress in this key project which we have planned to almost double over the coming year. However if we are successful in meeting these targets then Exetel will, inevitably, change dramatically from the company we set out to build and operate.
This brings in to question just how and who would be best suited to operate such a 'commercial' company. So while we have some very comprehensive 'figures' (in their neat rows and columns) I am concerned that we don't have the commitment levels that allowed Exetel to grow and continue to meet its objectives against the slings and arrows of outrageous Roses and perfidious Carriers that raged against our small group of exceptionally dedicated 'warriors'. Do many of our newer employees really care (or even know) about the basic objectives that have driven the early Exetel to try and succeed despite the endless difficulties we encountered over the past seven years? Within a 'commercial company' is that even relevant?
So, it seems to me, that many of the 'conditions' under which Exetel has operated over the last seven years will have to be 'ditched' because they are not relevant to a commercial operation. If that proves to be the case, and I'm pretty sure it will, then we will have to prepare more than a 'spread sheet' and some 'text' to make the transition from 'Exetel Past' to even 'Exetel Present'....let alone 'Exetel Future'.
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