John Linton .....in 2018?.......based on what is currently known about mainstream technologies and government ambition? Using the word "known" in those contexts is probably unwise.
The main agenda for the week for Exetel is to complete the work started last week (though in truth it is a continuing and never ending task) on trying to find a 'new' or 'better' way of offering residential ADSL services. I am progressively excluding myself from these tasks as I have progressively less to contribute and, quite frankly, I find the demands of trying to figure out what is happening at the moment, let alone what will happen in the near future, progressively more difficult. Perhaps it's because too many large ISPs now pretend to offer services that they have absolutely no intention of delivering and the lies, overt and covert, that appear on far too many ISP web sites are just too difficult to deal with but the ADSL buying public, just like the Labor voting NSW electorate over the past 16 years, despite the evidence of their own eyes, continue to 'buy' the lies.....and with that sort of view it is not possible for me to meaningfully participate in defining residential ADSL plans.
I am going to use my time this week in making an early start on next years business plan by developing the aims and ambitions for Exetel in the context of the coming seven years - which seven years ago would have been a complete nonsense and that may still be the case. My 'defence' for thinking about such an approach is that all the assumptions we, principally me, made seven years ago have all proven to be totally wrong. The corollary is that had those (principally my) assumptions not been so wrong then Exetel would be a much different, and almost certainly a much better company than it is today. It would certainly have been far less demanding to operate over the past seven years.
So, while I realise that it isn't possible to actually plan in dollar terms for the next seven years (other than in broad estimates) what it is possible to do is to plan what can be put in place, quarter by quarter, that will provide an enduring future increasing set of 'stepping stones' that will, pretty much, be 'event proof'. This isn't as 'wankerish' as it sounds. There are constants that apply to business and 'immutables' if you look at any type of business over any sort of long term time frame. If any planner can determine what those 'constants' and 'immutables' are (not all that difficult to do) and then determine whether or not they can be applied to a specific company then, presumably, that company will be more successful in the future than it is today because it will be able to outperform many of its competitors each quarter.
Sounds straightforward enough and it is. The only issues are the speed of technology and customer delivery changes and how those future changes can be not only be anticipated but how any 'money' spent "today" will also be an investment in the changing long term future rather than having only short term tactical advantages. Some of the things that Exetel has done from our very early stage fall into this category - unfortunately too many do not. On balance we have built better for the future than many companies we currently compete with and that has been a plus considering the inability of any start up company to really invest in even a medium term future unless it has very significant financial backing (which Exetel certainly didn't). Many of the companies we competed with in January 2004 simply disappeared along the way - presumably even their short term planning was not good enough to deal with the changes that have occurred over the past seven years.
So my 'task' for this week is to map out as many aspects of the constants and 'immutables' that will affect the Australian Communications Industry over the coming years and determine which, if any, of them Exetel can attempt to implement. My track record of managing to do this is far from enviable.
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