John Linton .....bad people remain exactly the same no matter how much time passes.
It has been a busy week so far with very 'full days' but little to show for the work I have put in. Fortunately the work put in by many other people in Exetel has been far productive than mine. It seems to be a characteristic of weeks before I go to Sri Lanka that I try, and miserably fail, to get through everything I have to do to ensure there are no loose ends before attempting to do an extra job with the inconvenience of doing my 'main' job with a 5 hour time difference in the coming week. I think it's getting much closer to my personal use by date.
Probably the highlight of the day was when I dropped in yesterday morning for 40 minutes or so on a chat between Steve and the recently ex COO at a larger ISP who approached us (after he left his former employer) to see if there was something he could contribute to Exetel. Both Steve and I knew him from years ago when Steve employed him to help him build out one of the early ISP capabilities and 'national' data networks. He had been there ever since which must be around the best part of fifteen years and I was very surprised that he would be interested in participating in a company of Exetel's size. However, next to Steve, he is probably the only other 'engineer' I have ever seriously respected over my career in this industry so I was interested in participating in the conversation.
The conversation was very interesting if for no other reason than getting a first hand view of the current and future residential communication markets as seen by a senior manager of a large competitor. Not that the views of anyone in such a position are going to differ in any major way from the generally held views (at least those of sensible people) that are widely available. So I asked my questions and enjoyed 'catching up' and let Steve get on with the discussion as to what Exetel might be able to offer. I think the conversation ended up very positively and when I 'discussed' it with Steve yesterday evening we might be able to reach some sort of agreement on a mutually enjoyable, and profitable, engagement.
The only other sensible contribution I made to the business yesterday was to work out what to do in terms of the $A versus the $US and the dependence the LKR has on being tied to the $US. We have gained a significant 'wind fall' advantage over the past year as the $A has appreciated against the $US (and therefore the LKR) by over 30% in that time. This has allowed us to add over 20 personnel in Colombo but not increase our monthly operating costs - in fact our SL costs have slightly fallen over that time. While that has been very positive for us it obviously raises the question of how sustainable the current exchange rates are over the coming 12 months and beyond. We looked at 'forward buying' $US and may still do that as the insurance that provides makes it easy to plan - however it is at a significant cost. While tending to err on the side of caution these days when I looked at all the numbers and digested the opinions of people with far better knowledge than mine on such matters (none) I will recommend that we not forward buy but make the assumption that if anything changes it is likely to be a continued appreciation by the $A. It doesn't sound much but even at our relatively low volumes it could be a swing of $A300,000 a year either way.
I enjoyed business 'life' much more when I was only involved in sales.
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