Sunday, June 15. 2008Does Anyone Really Plan Their Career.....John Linton ....or do most of us just try and find a way to meet our current financial obligations and have a good time? I would be one of the latter types who have put no planning in to my career at all and changed jobs in my first twenty working years based on 'boredom' or 'frustration' or by seeing an opportunity to earn more money for doing the same or a similar thing. I doubt that I ever worked very hard for any of the companies that gave me a job and my working days were spent 'having an enjoyable time' rather than spending every last minute doing things for my employer. As I was always in sales jobs in that period of my life I could get away with that way of working as I always achieved the sales quota's set which, essentially, meant that you could pretty much do as you liked - at least in those antedeluvian days. As Exetel has grown we have put in place a six monthly 'career planning' process for any of our personnel who want to use it. It's pretty 'non-intense' process which consists of circulating a questionaire that needs to be completed befor the individual has a meeting with his supervisor/manager, a meeting with the individual's manager/supervisor which is minuted and then a second meeting with one of Exetel's directors to ensure that all reasonable aspirations can be met and that there are sensible plans in place for those aspirations to be achieved. The questionaire agenda changes over time and this time it was: Did you have a career plan in place for the past 12 months? If you did: What career goals did you achieve? What career goals did you fail to achieve? What parts of your current job do you enjoy most? What parts of your current job do you dislike most? What do you want to do within Exetel over the coming twelve months? What do you need Exetel to do to help you do that? What do you need to do to help you do that Do you have a position that you would like to see yourself in in three years time? I have used this sort of process for most of the last 20 years with varying degrees of success in different companies. It may not achieve its ideal levels of success but it puts some sort of realistic planning framework for early career development for those people who choose to take advantage of its benefits and certainly does no harm to those people who don't see any value in it. Personally, I think people are better off making sure their aspirations are understood and just what opportunities, in terms of work tasks and directions as well as financial reward are realistically achievable in terms of their employer - I can see no downside in that scenario. Sometimes it will create a negative reaction that would not have been caused if this process was not in place but, from my direct experience, those occasions are very rare. Looking back, I think my 'career' would have achieved a great deal more if the companies I worked for (with the exception of IBM which had an excelent program) had some sort of career planning process for their employees. No matter how bright and, more importanty, how mature a young person starting a career may be they clearly have little or no idea of what they are capable of and probably have even less idea of what their current employer may be able to offer them. I regret some of the opportunities I lost because of my own impatience and immaturity and I regret, perhaps even more, in later years not helping people who worked for me understand that going on to 'pastures new' wasn't in their best career and pesonal interests at the times they decided to do that. It's a very difficult process and I would be the first person to understand the difficulties and 'dangers' of one person attempting to advise another person on what they should do in their working life. However, if there is no such 'mentoring process' within commercial companies what is a sensible alternative? Even if the advice from another person is inadequate or perhaps on occasions even completely wrong the process of formally attempting to think logically and make logical plans for your career would seem to me to outweigh never thinking about developing a career by talking it through on a semi-formal basis with other people who would know, if not more about what opportunities may be available or what longer term goals may be achievable, they might well act as at least some sort of sounding board or feedback mechanism. I think if I'd been able to have this sort of process I would have made fewer bad career decisions and would have achieved more in my working life. I suppose it may be necessary for some people (of which I am clearly one) to let too much time go by before regretting that they never took advantage of this process on the few occasions in a working life that it's sensibly offered. Saturday, June 14. 2008Exetel Sri Lanka Getting Closer To Being 'Real'John Linton We had 'farewell drinks' for the person who is going to manage Exetel Sri Lanka yesterday evening, his last working day in Australia for some time as he flies out next Tuesday. On the previous day Annette and I took him out for a 'formal' final lunch to go over what we saw were the main issues to be addressed and the likely major problems to be encountered. After my brief goodbye 'address' he also said a few words and it was a little sad in some indefinable way. The majority of Exetel employees in Australia are very young - more than half working in their first full time job - and an average age of less than 25 (excluding the working directors!). James, about to be the General Manager of Exetel Sri Lanka, is in his mid 20s and I couldn't help but envy him the adventure of going to a new country to set up a key business function at such a young age. I think it will be exciting as well as pretty scary and it's probably a plus rather than a minus to be that young. Exetel is, of course, a very small company and, in common with all small companies, very young (comparatively) people get to do jobs and hold responsibilities that are not generally available in larger organizations. The other most noticeable aspect of being in a company where so many people are doing things for the first times in their working lives is the innovative ways they 'solve' problems and address issues and the easy acceptance they adopt to being asked to do very difficult things in very, very short timeframes. In the case of the person we appointed to develop and manage Exetel Sri Lanka - he is very young for such a position and, before he came to Exetel had never been involved in support of communications services. In his two and a half years with Exetel he has, by demonstrated ability and hard work, taken responsibility for a very wide range of responsibilities and has consistently shown the ability to innovate and then carry out the implementation of quite complex, and truly new, processes. One of the main reasons that Exetel provides such an efficient level of support services to Australian customers is due to his coming up with good ideas and, rarer, being able to implement the good ideas other people come up with. As I continue to get ever older, and more tired, I am perhaps more impressed than I once was with the fact that so many inexperienced people can develop so quickly and so innovatively in environments in which they have little, or often, absolutely no previous experience. I'm sure the same sort of experiences are common in all small companies but it's probably the first time I have really noticed just how much innovation people bring to their working lives - perhaps because I'm so grateful that what I see happening in the constant changes that occur produce such excellent overall results. All but one or two of the companies with which I've been involved over a long business career have always had very good people and it's boringly common to see company 'blurbs' with some version of "our people are our greatest asset" prominent in their self appraisals. So maybe I'm simply being surprised at something I should take for granted. Perhaps all small companies are blessed with the same universal competence and dedication in every one of their personnel that Exetel appears to me to have. I'm never really certain where to 'draw the line' when it comes to giving people the freedom to work things out for themselves. Long experience has seemed to indicate that giving inexperienced people too little supervision and direction is a major mistake - perhaps a bigger mistake than giving them too much. I've never met anyone who could find the right balance and I think that indicates how difficult it is to do, at any level of management. There is, of course, a 'secret' to actually establishing and maintaining the right level of freedom versus direction but that has never been spelled out in any written material I have ever come across and, for a while, I read widely on this subject. I'm not saying that I' the only person in Australia that has this arcane knowledge but I think I know how to obtain it. I could well be wrong of course. It will be interesting to see how closely the 'results' of Sri Lankan operation match the planned 'facts and figures' in our first venture in to truly remote management. Friday, June 13. 2008The North Wind Doth Blow And We Shall Have Snow.....John Linton ......and what will poor Robin do then? Poor thing. It's surprising what you remember from your pre-school days and how your mind associates events and conversations of today with such trivia from so long ago. I can't remember the rest of that nursery rhyme exactly but I'm sure it referenced putting it's head under it's wing - ie. attempting to ignore the freezing weather of the Northern Hemisphere's winter. This little 'ditty' ran through my mind after I received two interesting telephone calls from two of the three companies that Exetel had been considering for the supply of ADSL2 MSANs last year, before the change of government and the subsequent bleak economic forecasts made it prudent for us to put any such investments on hold for an indefinite period. Why either of them should call us at all is strange enough (we had made it clear less than a month ago to both companies that we would not be doing anything until early 2009 at the earliest) but for both of them to call within an hour of each other makes it unlikely that it was a co-incidence of diligent prospect follow up. So what was the aspect(s) of the separate calls that brought back remembrance of a nursery rhyme heard more than 50 years ago? Nothing that was plainly stated or even directly inferred in either phone call. However the two conversations, put together, suggested something quite interesting. The first telephone call was from someone I have known for a very long while and was the more direct of the two. After a minimum of polite enquiry about the usual things (how's business for you, looking forward to your vacation etc) came the interesting question - "have you been offered any really good deals on DSLAM networks recently?" To which I replied, quite truthfully at that particular moment - "no". To which he replied "well if you are please don't forget that we are still really interested in helping you out and OLD technology wouldn't be the best way for you to go". I assured him that we wouldn't do such a thing to which he replied that maybe I would be offered a deal that appeared too good to refuse and please give him a call if that was the case. After attempting to get more details and failing we hung up and I thought no more about it. Late yesterday afternoon I received another call - this time from a company that we had only brief contact with during the investigation process and who had been the least responsive to our requests but had a viable operational solution albeit at the most expensive price of the three solutions we ended up considering. Essentially this phone call was a request for a meeting to allow the caller to put a proposal to us that he believed would be of such interest that we would be almost certain to accept it as it was a true "no risk - no commitment proposition". When I asked for more details he demurred but added that "it would include immediate availability to the majority of the exchanges in the original proposal at a better cost than previously proposed and with no long term financial barriers." I said I would call him back as I would need to discuss what Exetel's capability was in terms of undertaking an unplanned operational and financial project such as would be involved. After some further interchanges we concluded the call with me promising to call him back next Monday after we had discussed reconsidering some sort of DSLAM implementation. It was after I had put the phone down that nursery rhyme 'played itself' in a continuous loop in my head for a minute or so. What was it all about? I don't know. What would be my best guess? Hmmm.....four possible scenarios 'spring to mind': 1) A customer who is using that DSLAM provider to provide a managed DSLAM network has defaulted on its payments and the manufacturer is looking for a buyer. 2) Under its terms of providing managed DSLAM services the manufacturer has the right, in the event that certain volumes aren't met, to sell ports and services to other interested parties 3) The manufacturer is acting as an 'agent' on behalf of someone it's sold managed DSLAM services to in an arms length arrangement to boost usage on an under utilized network roll out 4) The manufacturer has seen a dramatic slow down (caused by the FTTN 'tender' fiasco) in its sales of DSLAMs and is working out how it can become a managed services provider to those ISPs who can't afford, don't want to afford, their own DSLAM network Your guess is as good as mine. My personal view is that 4) above is the most likely scenario perhaps based on some parts of 1) to 3) above. I think that would be a very interesting concept - divorcing the DSLAM network from any of the current ISPs/Carriers (who, at the end of the day, all prefer to use their networks for their retail businesses). It could be a very good idea to have a 'true' wholesaler of ADSL2 termination and back haul services at affordable costs for even relatively small ISPs. It would certainly put the cat amongst the pigeons in terms of what current ADSL2 wholesale pricing is available. Just one more 'unknown quantity' along with Telstra's possible offer of wholesale ADSL2, Telstra's possible offer of lower cost ADSL1, other DSLAM network owners offers of different pricing models for access to their networks and the risk of building out Exetel's own DSLAM network (not going to ever happen if my views remain correct). But there is every indication of a chill settling over the provision of broadband services in a number of areas and some indications that more than one of the remaining ISPs is beginning to feel the cold winds of a wintry economic outlook more keenly than they had planned on. Poor things. Thursday, June 12. 2008Improving The 'Service' Provided By Call CentresJohn Linton I read this article last night as I was making a list of the key actions we have agreed to take over the first six months of FY2009 to further improve the levels of service we offer our customers (one of which is to improve our reporting and analytical procedures): http://www.itwire.com/content/view/18565/127/1/3/ I don't know what you think, if you bother to read it, but maybe there are some interesting new and valuable concepts as promised by the reporter but all I saw was a new high in meaningless buzz words. I don't think I've ever seen so many stupid and just plain crazy words and 'phrases' used in one piece of writing out side of Jonathan Lynn and Antony Jay's set pieces once per episode where Sir Humphrey produces what seems to be five minute long statement consisting entirely of strung together meaningless phrases. I think this article clearly depicts 'NICE' as being a contender for Sir Humphrey's title of "the Paganini of prevarication". I'm sure there was some point to the article but all I could find was that the reporter himself had bad experiences when using an Australian call centre and that his personal bad experiences were the norm rather than the exception. Possibly a generically accurate view but hardly worth writing about. Fixing a customer's problem in the shortest possible time is the prime purpose of a call centre. If the call centre experience can also make the customer feel more positive about the company because of the way his/her problem was resolved then that is a highly desirable bonus and should be the secondary purpose of operating a call centre (making more sales of the company's products/services). We have now spent almost four and a half years providing call centre services to Exetel customers and, over that time, we have changed almost every aspect of what we do and and how we do it - unsurprising when you do something from 'scratch' and decide that everything you've seen or been associated with in the past is not something you'd like to be part of. Our views of what a customer call centre should achieve from FY2009 onwards can be summed up without using any buzz words or obfuscatory phrases as:
2) Determine whether there is a problem that Exetel is responsible for fixing within 120 seconds of answering the call 3) If the problem is caused by a fault at Exetel or its providers get the customer's service restored within 48 hours in 95% of all cases 4) If the problem is not caused by Exetel help the customer understand how to go about resolving his/her own problem within a further three minutes 5) Document the details of each call on the customer's service history before taking another call 6) If the Exetel/supplier problem is not fixed within 48 hours ensure a Level 3 engineer takes over the control of getting the problem resolved and keeps in contact with the customer at least once a day. 7) If the problem goes beyond 5 working days escalate the handling of the problem to the Support or Provisioning Manager (depending on the reason for the delay in restoring the service). Written like that, there are no ambiguities and no 'fancy' words. Any call centre manager should be able to agree, more or less without any real changes, to this sort of simple set of objectives in the telecommunications business which must take in to consideration the time frames of the carriers who are responsible for almost 100% of the actions required to restore a telephone or ADSL service. Of course my personal experiences in dealing with call centres is pretty similar to the writer of the article I referenced: 1) Very long wait times before my call is actually answered 2) Unhelpful, often quite ignorant, "help" from the person answering my call. 3) No fix to my problem within a reasonable time frame 4) No follow up/call back from the people fixing my problem necessitating repeated additional calls by me 5) No way of getting my problem escalated in any realistic time frame or in any reasonable way So why does this happen? I don't know. Presumably there are failures within the organisations that I have personally dealt with in adequately staffing the call centres concerned (resulting in long wait times) and poor personnel selection and training (ignorant/unhelpful call centre personnel) probably all based on senior management indifference to these issues based on financial decisions - but, as I said - I just don't know. I do know that if senior management are involved then there are few problems and those problems that do occur, as inevitably they will, get addressed sooner rather than later - so my view is that poor call centre customer support is a direct result of poor quality senior management within an organisation. I am asuming that the "NICE" software is based on providing senior management with some panacea solution that involves spending a lot of money on analysing problems that shouldn't exist in the first place. I didn't really get enough information from the article to properly form that unkind opinion but it seems to me that you don't need too much information to put in place a call centre staffed by people who will allow your company to offer exactly the kind of 'support experience' you have decided is what you wish to do. All you need is the will to do that. We have developed our own call centre software using the base data provided from our telephone system and our customer data base and that allows us (and of course every other company using their own selected software) to exactly determine what standards are being met and therefore what, if anything needs to be done to improve the 'customer experience'. The solution to providing the best level and quality of customer service is not a software issue. All it needs is enough personnel to ensure customers don't have to wait to speak to someone and a hiring policy that ensures the person who deals with a customer's issue has the knowledge, tools and skills to fix whatever issue they are confronted with in the shortest possible time. Then all that is needed by top 'Senior Management' is software that gives a distillation of a few key indicators of the performance of support in general and any individual within support who is not meeting the required customer service levels. Very simple - needs no fancy words or fancy software - just common sense and the correct budget. Wednesday, June 11. 2008Telstra To Wholesale ADSL2?John Linton I see the news media have finally picked up on the 'whispers' that Telstra is considering wholesaling ADSL2 from its 900 or so enabled exchanges: http://www.commsday.com/node/237 and: http://www.misaustralia.com/viewer.aspx?EDP://1213059191092§ion=news As Exetel nears the completion of its 'discussions' with various ADSL2 providers to determine what can be offered in the coming year we have considered the impact of such a move by Telstra as we have tracked Telstra Retail's 'campaigns' of marketing to our ADSL1 users on their ADSL2 enabled exchanges. There is no doubt that Telstra Retail has made concerted efforts via below wholesale cost 'bundling' of services to get as many ADSL1 customers of other ISPs to move to Telstra's ADSL2 services as possible over the past 6 - 12 months and I've referenced some of the offers they have been making in these musings since September of last year. It would be naive to think that those 'campaigns' have achieved all they could achieve and that now Telstra has done as much damage to the competitors as could be economically achieved over a realistic time frame it would now be 'safe' to offer ADSL2 services to increase its market share - though that could be possible it isn't at all likely. However the suggested pricing for a Telstra wholesale ADSL2 service that is bandied about by people who could be expected to know what they are talking about is clearly based on targeting the sort of pricing being offered by the next largest owner of ADSL2 DSLAMs - Optus; then again it could simply be a coincidence. As, as far as I know, there is nothing in writing with Telstra's 'signature' on it any ADSL2 offer, should one ever be made, and the various pricing 'tiers' for such an offer is completely unknown. I said a few days ago that one of the issues that Exetel had to consider in finalizing its own plans for FY2009 was what Telstra Retail (and to a lesser extent Optus Retail) would be doing post June 15th regarding both ADSL1 and ADSL2 pricing. My metaphorical pen is hovering over a metaphorical contract that I had hoped would be already in place so that we could get on with the final detailed implementation planning for next year but three of the suppliers we are still considering for different services continue to equivocate on just what any final offer may be. What has become clear is that many people have much more knowledge than I do of what new pricing parameters may be available in the not too distant future. I can only go on what I have in writing and what we are actually prepared to accept - and that gap has yet to be closed. It seems obvious that Telstra's possible entry in to the ADSL2 wholesale market is causing at least two other possible ADSL2 suppliers to Exetel to hesitate on just what they are prepared to offer in terms of pricing - alternatively they are just taking even more time than usual to work out what their offerings should be priced at. There is definitely an uncertainty in their communications that wasn't previously noticeable. Having said that about possible suppliers to Exetel I have grave concerns about what both Telstra and Optus will be offering ADSL services for over the coming weeks and months so perhaps I should be more understanding. Maybe we should just re-sell whatever Telstra comes up with for the time being? One thing we have decided to do, irrespective of what provider(s) we use is to go ahead with the decentralization of our customer connections by terminating them in each State and Territory capital city. This is an expensive exercise for us but it is well under way with the Perth PoP already live and the Adelaide PoP about to go live by the end of this week. Our intention is to not only terminate our ADSL1 services in these locations but to begin to terminate ADSL2 services (from whichever supplier(s) we end up using in the different capital cities as well as expanding our business user coverage to every State in Australia. Part of our reasoning for doing this was the expectation that we would need to terminate ADSL2 services in different States as the cost of national back haul from Telstra was too expensive. What the future of ADSL1 now becomes, assuming that Telstra at some stage does decide to wholesale ADSL2, is an interesting question. Who would buy an ADSL1 service if they could get a comparable ADSL2 service? Not many people if the pricing was equivalent - which there is no reason for it not to be based on what is currently offered in the marketplace by Telstra and every other provider of ADSL2 services. When we were considering implementing our own DSLAMs in Sydney we established that, at relatively low levels of customers per exchange, the cost per 'port' plus the back haul from the exchange to our Sydney PoPs was approximately $A10.50 on top of which had to be added the PoP overhead and the IP costs. This was based on a SSS service. The cost of, our preferred, ULL solution was some $A7.00 more expensive. In the end, given what we saw were the many risks, financial and technical, in doing this we decided to keep buying ADSL2 connectivity from a much bigger company than we could ever hope to be and pay what now turns out to be a relatively small premium for a much wider coverage than we could have hoped to achieve - with no financial or technological risks. Maybe all will become clear in the not too distant future but, in the meantime, small companies like Exetel have to operate their businesses day to day based on the facts, or what they believe to be facts, available to them at any given time. Tuesday, June 10. 2008Hey Dude, Someone Stole My Business Plan........John Linton .....well, not really, but I had a massive case of Deja Vu when I read this article earlier this morning: http://www.itwire.com/content/view/18088/127/ ...I could have sworn I wrote most of that 'announcement', word for word, in Exetel's plan for business service offerings 4 years ago. Mind you, I'm not making any proprietorial claim over those commonsense statements of the 'bleeding obvious' - just that it almost took my breath away to read them as some sort of 'new idea' from Telstra.' I didn't know whether to smile or frown as I read this as it seemed to me that Telstra had, as usual, decided to appropriate what many businesses have put in place over the past ten years (Exetel has done it better than most for its own use and for an increasing number of business customers) and suddenly 'announce it' as some sort of "breakthrough". The concept of Telstra actually attempting to claim that they would offer VoIP as some sort of "new" facility for business users (having done everything in their power to NOT provide VoIP to end users for the past five years) was good for a laugh. The actualities of a company offering VoIP, ADSL, HSDPA, Email hosting with national and international connectivity from 'head office' to distributed offices, work from home and work on the road employees have been around (except for the HSDPA service) for a very long time and several (perhaps dozens, perhaps hundreds - I simply don't know) communications companies (including Exetel) already offer such an 'integrated solution' and have done for some time - at least ten years I would have thought. Of course other companies offering these services don't have the execrable arrogance to put words like this into print: "By allowing a business to consolidate voice and data networking operations and systems, IP telephony can give businesses improved cost-efficiencies, both through the management of operations, and also through call cost savings between offices on the same business data network. Telstra's Connect IP Telephony is a business-grade, multi-featured telephony system deployed across a business’s data network infrastructure, which does not suffer from the poor quality and performance issues associated with internet-based VOIP deployments in the market today. What condescending, self serving, totally up yourself BS. Telstra, now forced to recognize that the VoIP horse has well and truly bolted with a huge number of businesses already using VoIP and a rapidly increasing number of residential users, is going to save us from ourselves by condescending, five years too late, to admit that VoIP actually does save a lot of money and is infinitely more efficient than the tired old Telstra 'rammed down your throat' for years past its use by date, wring the last possible drop of profit out of the falling apart infrastructure" Telstra is accustomed to providing. VoIP has been used by Exetel, and thousands, quite possibly tens of thousands of 'small businesses' for up to five years around Australia and, despite Telstra's best efforts to continually say otherwise, Exetel, and all of those other companies have already been achieving 'toll quality' telephone calls and all the advantages of low cost telephony as well as all the advantages of the features that IP telephony brings to communications within commercial and government entities. Exetel is a prime example of having different offices and different work from home and work on the road people connected across multiple locations within a State, multiple States and multiple locations in other countries using integrated voice and data communications and we've been doing that for over three years in Australia and over two years 'internationally'. [Note to Telstra: we run our whole business on VoIP and integrated data services without any compromise on quality and, fortunately for us and our customers, without having to pay Telstra's enormous premiums to use technology that is not only not "new" - it's well past it's fifth "birthday" in widespread use in Australia] It's true that we don't use HSDPA as an Exetel supplied service but do use HSDPA for 'on the road' connectivity to our centralized data base and email and other systems. However we continue to work on providing an HSDPA service, exactly for this purpose and priced at a realistic usability, before the end of 2008. I was more intrigued in what Telstra is now being forced to publicly say (having said nothing in 'public' and unequivocally 'slamming the technology in 'one to one' conversations for the past five years) which is that VoIP is "perfect quality" and truly suitable for business. Of course, every country in North America and the European Union and almost every Asian country already widely uses VoIP in every part of their telecommunications systems so apparently Telstra is readying itself to enter the 21st Century. I wonder what this means for Telstra's current wire line charges? Is Telstra, like almost every other supplier in Australia now going to charge only 10 cents for an untimed call anywhere in Australia? I wonder how they would build that revenue and profit hit in to some future business forecast? Oh I forgot; only Telstra can deliver VoIP at an acceptable quality and therefore the end user will still have to pay what they pay now but they'll have the advantage of the service being called IP telephony. I suppose this is just one more example of why Telstra's monopoly continues to ensure that Australians have a second rate communications technology and pay an enormous premium to use it. But, don't worry, be happy, the FTTN project will solve all your problems. Monday, June 9. 2008Could Try Harder...Seldom Achieve's His Potential.....John Linton .......I wonder how many people remember such, or similar, comments on their school reports? More than a few perhaps? I don't remember any on mine but then that could well have been becasue I didn't try at all throughout my school education or alternatively because it was so long ago that I have no real recollection of such details - I do remember not trying at all though as 'good enough' results came very easily to me in all subjects other than applied math (which I never understood from the first moment I opened the course books). However if I was to mark my 'business report card' I would very definitely use those phrases and some much harsher ones. Nothing like a long weekend to reflect on the weeks and months in front of you - particularly when you are working on a business plan that sets out in such clinical detail what has to be accomplished over the next twelve months simply to 'stay alive' let alone make any real progress. As the increasing number of aches and pains and other disabilities keep ramming home the message that I am now at an age where most people take it much easier and enjoy the financial and other benefits of their long and successful career achievements to spend more time on the golf course and 'investigatory' overseas trps than they consider giving to their offices. Unfortunately, and I would be the first to admit completely deservedly, I am in neither of those situations and therefore I am looking at a very demanding twelve months where 70 - 80 hour weeks are yet again going to be the norm to ensure that Exetel gets through some likely quite difficult circumstances (perhaps fortunately, I don't play golf and therefore have no handicap to improve by spending more time on that activity). I don't regard myself as a particularly lazy person but I do look at the work required over the coming 12 months and then for several years beyond that, if not with dismay, then with something that begins to have all the signs of dismay. Ignoring the obvious self pity elements of such emotional self indulgences there is a very real hard core of the recognition that physical stamina is as much a part of competitive business life as is mental acuity and mental toughness. If ever there was a time when it's highly likely to need to 'try harder' and to 'perform right up to the very top limits of potential' then FY2009 has all the indications of such a period. The realisation that has also now occurred to me is that such efforts, together with their associated financial and operational risks, will have to continue for 2 - 3 years beyond June 30th 2009 - there is no 'end in sight' and while we might not be in Kansas any more we're a very long way from Oz. Then again, perhaps it's just the miserable weather here - third day of a rainy long weekend. Of course, as Annette said over lunch yesterday -"just take one of the offers that occur every so often (the real ones not the flim flam) and sell the company". She's probably correct but I don't think I've either "tried hard enough yet" nor have I yet "achieved my potential" and they are very serious errors of omission in any career. I also think that having put in so much effort, by so many people over the past four and a half years that it would be a great shame not to achieve at least most of the objectives we set when we began this 'project'. From what I've read the ability to survive four years in a start up business is a fair indication that the business will go on to survive in to its tenth year either as an ongoing separate entity or as part of another entity with which it mergees or by which it is taken over. From the same business advice and reading, from the fifth year onwards life begins to get easier for the founders of a small business and they need to devote less personal time to it. It doesn't look that way but who am I to quibble with 'experts'? What I did do late last night /early this morning was take three of the most obviously difficult decisions and implementations out of the Exetel business plan and reduced the revenue targets for FY2010 and 2011 which were, as is their nature, only general estimates anyway. I don't know if this was the right thing to do or not but it made me feel better and while I realised that they could be re-instated at any time the whole management burden looked far less demanding. Ah....the power of self delusion......... Sunday, June 8. 2008Looking At What FY2009 May BringJohn Linton For some 25 plus years I have been accustomed to using the (NSW) June Long Weekend as the 'dead line' for producing the next financial year's operating plan in terms of monthly P&L and month by month operational decisions relating to acquiring personnel, releasing 'new' products/services and estmating what changes have to be made to current products/services over the coming 12 months to meet what I would guess to be what other companies that affect our company's activities might do. I seldom get many of these issues right and, as I said a couple of days ago, planning can no longer be done a year ahead, in any real sense, and is basically done, at least by people like me, on a 'rolling basis' with many decisons being made each day as the flow of real (or what I perceive to be real) information about competitors, marketplaces and government decision making becomes clear in their various implications to what Exetel is currently doing or is planning to do in the near future. However the banks always want to see business plans as do various other people (including shareholders and directors) and in the dangerous world of small business the legal protections of sensibly based written business plans and even more sensible cash flow, revenue and profit forecasts are essential elements of remaining in business. So I completed the 'final' Exetel Australia and Exetel Sri Lanka business plans in terms of the key month by month financials of revenue, profit and cash flow for each of the months of the FY2009 financial year around 3.30 am this morning. It all makes eminent sense and, given some supplier decisions that need to be made over the next 2 - 3 days, will not be changed in any significant way before being circulated to Exetel's directors and shareholders. They key issues I addressed in preparing next year's plan were: 1) A change in ADSL2 supplier - or the adding of a second ADSL2 supplier to replace Powertel/AAPT. 2) The discontinuance of 'ADSL1' as a major revenue earner for Exetel Australia or the drastic reduction of ADSL1 supply costs. 3) The impact of adding a Layer 2 HSDPA service in terms of operations and support (as well as revenue impact) 4) The implications of increasing the VoIP services by a factor of ten 5) Providing services in New Zealand 6) Providing services in the European Union 7) Providing services in Sri Lanka 8. Changing the Exetel Australia revenue sources from Residential 80% and Corporate 20% to Residential 60% and Corporate 40% My view of what 'competitors' might do to influence any of the decisions that we might make has become very strange compared to previous 'Exetel' years. This change is that up until the current financial year (and definitely not figuring in the planning done for the current financial year 12 months ago) is the fact that there are unlikely to be any 'competitive' actions that would influence (either positively or negatively) what a small company like Exetel plans to do in FY2009 - except those by Telstra. In previous years I never considered that Telstra was even vaguely a competitor in what Exetel would try and do while the actions of some other much smaller companies than Telstra were important - in varying degrees. Right now my view is that no other company offering services in the marketplaces/product sets in which Exetel is involved can affect anything Exetel plans to do in any way - and as we move further away from other communications company offerings we cease to be 'in competition' with companies we once might have regarded as being, in some ways, competitors. My judgement/guesswork if you wish to be less than kind, is that companies such as iiNet, Internode, TPG, iPrimus, AAPT et alia have nothing newer or more different to offer than they already do and their different and differing capacities to innovate are almost zero at these 'blind alley' stages of their various corporate lives - at least in any sense of negatively or positively influencing Exetel's actions and initiatives which increasingly diverge from those companies objectives. Optus Retail could make life more difficult for Exetel than it already does but I think it's much easier to guess at their likely future 'announcements' and I don't think that Exetel will be as affected as in the past. However Telstra's actions, together with it's inactions, could make life very, very hard for Exetel in the coming twelve months and not least because Telstra's future actions are becoming even harder to guess at than in previous years. My issues with Telstra Retail are: 1) What will they sell 'ADSL1' at come July 1st 2008 or, perhaps, June 15th? My guess is that they will drop the prices of "ADSL1" substantially and increase the speed of "ADSL1" at the same time. 2) What will they reduce the price of "ADSL2" to by August 1st 2008? My guess is by up to 50% on their current "web based plans" and something greater than that on their "promotional offers". 3) What will they reduce their data over 3G prices to over the next six months? My guess is they'll reduce them by around 50%. 4) Will they be persuaded to actually build some sort of ADSL replacement network in some reasonable time frame? There are other considerations but those are the four main ones. Perhaps I'm completely incorrect - I hope that is the case - but if I'm not then perhaps you can see why I'm of the opinion that nothing anyone else does, other than Telstra, matters. Anyway it's going to be, as always, a difficult 12 months but hopefully a satisfying one for both Exetel and Exetel's customers. Saturday, June 7. 2008First Rudd Total F*** Up Now Set In ConcreteJohn Linton I wrote about my prediction for the FTTN tender almost as soon as that pack of ideological clowns was voted in to 'office'. I take no credit, and certainly no comfort, from being right on every point as anyone who had even a glimmer of understanding about Australia's communications marketplaces would have reached the same conclusions and said/written exactly the same things - which subsequently they did. From which any reasonable person could conclude that Stupid Stephen and Crazy Kevin had, and have, absolutely NO knowledge or understanding of any aspect of the Australian communications industry - the only explanation for their ludicrous FTTN 'tender'. So where are we at on this bright and sunny start to this long weekend? Telstra has, oh that's a surprise, constantly, and ever more stridently and intransigently stated that it will not agree to share any new infrastructure it builds. Terria has continually run a campaign in the media, by personal and professional lobbying and by the commissioning of 'independent' investigations that: a) The cost of building an FTTN without Telstra is going to be over $A20 billion b) That if Telstra builds an FTTN then the cost to the consumer will be double what is now paid c) The timeframe for building such a FTTN is closer to ten years than five years d) Only a break up of Telstra into wholesle and retail will alow any progress at all So Terria et al say, in effect, "we can't build an FTTN so let Telstra build an FTTN but only if you break up Telstra". While Telstra says, plainly, "If you try and break up Telstra you'll run out of time and money in the courts" In the meantime, as I originally said, the bean counters in the big carriers have put a hold on any further investment in DSLAM roll out and there's an increasing lack of available ADSL2 ports around the continent. And the reason? Again, just as I wrote way back just after the last election - ALL PARTIES (except Telstra) can't afford to have an FTTN built that will make their touted ADSL2 roll outs just a pile of rusting , unusable junk, but with seven year lease payments still to make on it. So The Rudd, happy band of apparatchiks is right royally screwed - a crazy marketing dreamed up election sound bite has turned and bitten the wrong dog. How will those two morons and their caucus colleagues talk themselves out of this very, very public total fiasco? Fortunately I received this 'caucus leak' from an over worked public servant that gives the game away: CRAZY KEVIN:"Well, now there's the real trick Stephen - I suppose a back away and let's forget the whole mess is out of the question? Hmmmmm yes, I thought you'd say that." STUPID STEPHEN: Well, I guess we could blame it all on Telstra? Everyone except Telstra hates Telstra so that would work and we won't have to pay back the money they bought us the election with because they say they never did that. CRAZY KEVIN: "Good thinking - that's the go then. Get me a press release prepared for, oh let me think, say late September, where you.....," STUPID STEPHEN: ".....But Kev, Maaaaaate..." CRAZY KEVIN: "no,no Stephen not me, I'm God like in my ability to champion the causes of working families inerrantly and I fear even the 15% of the electorate below average intelligence people who got us elected might see this as some sort of, well I can't bring myself to use the right descriptive words, but you know Stephoen - some one may have to take one for the team." Star Date September 30th 2008: "and so it came to pass somewhere where it definitely isn't Kansas any more that the first of that noble order of round table champions of the Australian working family shamefacedly left those hallowed portals never to be a cabinet minister again. OK, sorry, it is a long weekend. (Incidentally, I work, my wife works, four of my Australian children work - the other is at uni, - so why don't we qualify as one of Crazy Kevin's working families? I suppose that moron's definition of a working family is a family that votes for him.). Friday, June 6. 2008Finalising Exetel's Operating Plan For FY2009John Linton For as long as I've been responsible for some or all aspects of planning it's been a point of 'principle' for me to complete what I was responsible for in time for other people to be able to make suggestions and required changes so that all of the resulting assignment of responsibilities and task assignments can be completed prior to July 1st of the new financial year. I realized a long time ago that this requirement can never be met if planning for a new year doesn't actually simply consist of extending what is already in progress and is in place in detailed form already in some formal ways. It's obvious that you can't decide to sell 3,000 ADSL services a month if you aren't already selling ADSL services and therefore have in place all of the contracts and logistics that make that possible. It's equally obvious that sort of 'constraint' applies to almost every other aspect of a commercial entity's activities. So all revenue planning these days is simply done on a 'rolling' forecast of sales results from current activities which is adjusted and changed based on daily 'analysis' of what 'comes in the door' and how the trends of the different 'coming in the door' are indicating what might need to be done in terms of increasing or decreasing those order 'flows'. The full implementation of computer/data base systems from the 1970s onwards has made the future progressively more certain to predict, from a planning point of view, and has made 'annual' business plans virtually redundant except in terms of planning new capital expenditures and estimating 'ramp up' order flows. Even end of year revenue and profit results are predictable from the mid way point of any reporting year with less than around a 5%+/- differential as the 'instant' results reporting now available in any sensibly run organization allows ongoing adjustment on an actual versus planned basis pretty much daily and confirmed within a few days of the end of each month via the management accounts that give detailed figures for every part of a commercial company's operations. So when I say "I've almost finished Exetel's operating plan for FY2009" all I really mean is that I've included my best guesses of what effect I think the new activities will have on the old activities and therefore on the monthly revenue and profit results. It's a little more complicated than that as a company's operating plan is based on its current personnel and any planned additional personnel but that's a subsequent and different planning scenario and a different process. The major operational considerations we have had to incorporate in to our Exetel Australia plan are: 1. The gradual move of the telephone and email support functions from Australia to Sri Lanka over the coming twelve months. 2. The introduction of an HSDPA service with all the complexities of dependent hardware ordering and lead times (and cash flow implications) 3. Changes in suppliers, and therefore pricing models, for several important services 4. The very different costs and operational challenges of a multiple PoP based service and support structure 5. The move from 'monolithic' management to 'distributed' management of our 'awkward size' company 6. The transition from a 'base' service provider to a 'value added' service provider So it's fortunate that 'modern' planning tools make it simple to extrapolate current results and cost structures forward another 12 months (those planned numbers are already in place) to determine the planned monthly, quarterly and annual revenue and profit targets. The FY2009 operating plan has, effectively, been in place for over twelve months. All that really has to be done, to produce that sort of plan, is to insert revised buy prices that are likely to be in place over that period and re-assess the accuracy, or otherwise, of the order inflows. Piece of cake - no wonder it can be done well ahead of schedule. Basically Exetel's automated data base systems develop the Exetel Australia operating plan second by second, 24 hours a day every day of the year. What I find very difficult is determining the changes that will take place over the coming twelve months that will make the current computer tracked trends and extrapolations less than definitive. The 'computer' shows that Exetel Australia's revenues will increase by 28% over the coming twelve months and our profit will increase by 40% - very comforting predictions based on very precise current results, long, medium and short term trends and known buy price changes. If only I could believe what the computer systems are telling me will happen. I'm pretty sure that the ability to continue to provide services to the Australian marketplaces we address at lower operating costs than all competitors will be sustained throughout FY2009 and, based on the Sri Lankan 'venture' being as successful as we think it will be and the full implementation of GURUS delivering the new second by second levels of control we plan for then I think that our current operating cost advantages will in fact become larger. My concern, and a very real concern, is that, at least as far as 'base' services are concerned, the current 'buy price' cost disadvantages will widen more than they already have and that our slim planned profits will not be enough to address any significant 'worsening of the terms of trade' disadvantage that we already operate under. The longer term way of addressing this key issue is to complete the move to relying on 'value added' services for the ongoing profitability of Exetel Australia but that is a three year (at least) project and needs a great deal of skill to execute - it certainly won't be able to make a big enough contribution in FY2009. So, despite all the numbers (courtesy of the computer systems) looking as neat and hopeful as ever the completion of our FY2009 operating plan will, as usual, depend on 'guesswork' and the ability to put in place alternatives and direction change options to cater from the less desirable results of various competitor's actions and the unpredictable nature of the marketplaces themselves in difficult political times. Thursday, June 5. 2008ADSL1 At ADSL2 Pricing - Latest ISP Scam?John Linton As the number of ADSL2 exchanges that have one or more provider's ADSL2 capable DSLAMs in them an interesting scenario has begun to arise - that is the fact that some providers have begun to move their ADSL1 customers on to their own DSLAMs thus preventing any easy migration for those customers to another provider and this is being done without the knowledge of the customers concerned. I have only become aware of this because a growing number of customers of these providers are being rejected when they attempt to churn away from their current ADSL1 provider (and not unnaturally assumed that as they joined under the 'fast churn' process they could transfer to another ISP using the same 'fast churn' process). They initially get very angry with Exetel because we tell them that their current provider is no longer part of the churn process and, having checked with their current provider who denies all knowledge of any change of status calls Exetel back and again abuses our incompetence. Eventually the person attempting to 'churn' realizes that their provider has mislead them and we aren't to blame. I'm sure that the providers concerned will attempt to browbeat those unhappy customers who now, without their knowledge or permission, have been locked in to their ADSL supplier by saying 'read the terms and conditions' or whatever. However the fact remains that the customer has been mislead and has been purposely mislead by the provider making a change to the service provided that seriously disadvantages the end customer without giving the customer prior notice that included the ability to move to another provider of ADSL1 services before becoming locked in. I checked on the web site of the ISP whose customers have complained the most to Exetel about our 'refusal' to churn them and that ISP's web site still proudly states that "fast churn is available" ( it just doesn't say it's only available on the way in - after you've been conned in to churning the metaphorical door is slammed shut and they throw away the key). It seems a customer of that ISP who has been locked in without their permission has a very good case for suing them for damages and exposing them for what they obviously are. Yet another example of the lack of ethics, morals and any other expected characteristics of too many people in the communications industry in Australia at this time. Of course Telstra (who else) is to blame for this piece of chicanery on the part of the unscrupulous ISPs who indulge in these unethical practices. Not that Telstra has acted in any way unethically or in any way other than totally correctly as they and their lawyers and any other impartial commentator would see the situation. But what they have done is charge so much money for a 256/64kbps connection (both to activate it and then in monthly 'port' charges) that ANY small DSLAM deployer can deliver an ADSL2 service to an end user for a fraction of what Telstra Wholesale is charging for the very lowest speed ADSL1 service. You can see that it would be in ANY ISP's interests to move its out of contract ADSL1 customers on to their own infrastructure asap as it saves them between $40.00 a month and $8.00 a month per customer (depending on ADSL1 speed). The problem in doing that is that the customer loses the fast churn ability (ADSL1 to ADSL1) and the 'no downtime', usually free transfer, ability from ADSL1 to ADSL2 using ULL. At this moment, Exetel has between 19,000 and 13,000 ADSL1 customers on ADSL2 enabled exchanges (depending on which future ADSL2 provider we choose to use) and it's inevitable that, once we make a decision on which ADSL2 provider we will use from July 1st (and yes, we still haven't made a final decision), there is little doubt that, given the choice, a pretty substantial number of those ADSL1 customers would move to an ADSL2 DSLAM if we reduced their ADSL1 plan price (which as there is a significant cost saving to us we could easily do). So, we could give them the choice of the same plan at a lower cost (256 - $7.00, 512 - $12.00, 1500 - $19.00, 8192 - $35.00) or the same plan at ADSL2 speeds - It wouldn't be the hardest 'sell' in the world and the only downside is that they would have to wait and see whether a ULL to ULL or ULL - SSS 'fast churn becomes available - and there is no technical reason why it shouldn't. Of course, Exetel would notify the customers on the basis they had a choice of whether they wanted to transfer to either of the two ADSL2 options or remain on their 'fast churnable' ADSL1 service. Wednesday, June 4. 2008I Don't Know Where We Are Toto.....John Linton ......but it sure don't look like Kansas (the Australian Communications Industry As We Knew It). A little while ago, and I can't exactly remember who said it (I'll guess at an American comedian) or exactly how it went, but: "You know the world's gone crazy when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is black, the tallest guy in the NBA is Chinese, the Swiss hold the Ameica's cup, Germany doesn't want to start a war, the French are accusing everyone else of being arrogant and the three most powerful men in America are called Bush, Dick and Colon." I'm getting that feeling more and more often these days and I don't think ongoing bewilderment is a condition that is looked for in someone holding some minor position that requires some sort of decision making. In the first two days of this week I've had contacts from a number of people, some of whom I've never heard of before apparently making the following propositions: 1) From a company about whom I've only shown total contempt - "Hi John (this from a person I've never heard of and who clearly doesn't know me) I'm calling to see if you'd like to buy services from us" - this was a call on my private mobile phone number. [Yes, sure, all is forgiven and I'd love to risk Exetel's future dealing with a completely stupid and inept company like yours] 2) From a company whom I've never heard from and have no expectation of ever talking to - "Is that John Linton? This is YYY from XXX and I hear Exetel is on the market and we would like to make you an offer which we are sure you'll accept" - another call on my mobile phone - again from a person who I have no idea how he could have got the number. [I must be really easy to 'read' if anyone knows such a thing - even those very intimately involved in Exetel] 3) From a supplier "Mr Linton (points for not p***ing me off from the get go) we were wondering if you could pay your July bill (not usually received till early August) by 20th June as we need to close our end of year accounts." [No problem, I always pay two months in advance to companies that clearly have financial problems - I did that once - anyone remember Compass Airlines?] 4) From a large supplier not noted for its pricing flexibility - by email - "Please let us know what pricing you would like to ensure that you could sell more of XXX services". [You want Exetel to tell you what price we want to pay? Sorry - just for a moment I was suffering from dyslexia] 5) From another large supplier "Sorry about the recent problems but what can we do in terms of pricing and any other assistance to continue doing business with Exetel." [ An account manager change isn't going to fix your company's endemic and unacceptable problems] 6) From a 'competitor's CFO - "You don't know me Mr Linton (correct on both counts) but I've heard it on the grapevine (and he didn't sound a bit like Marvin Gaye) that you might be in some financial trouble and I'm just calling to let you know we would be happy to assist in any way we could." [ .....and pigs can fly at the speed of sound] 7) From a Canberra politician's office (not Labor) - "Mr Linton, I'm ZZZ from XXX's office and YYYY has recommended you very highly as being deeply knowledgable about data communications and we would like you, if you could spare the time, to join a meeting (date named) to discuss with XXX what should be done regarding the current FTTN tender. [Sure - I have so little to do with my empty days I can waste one them in Canberra 2 or 3 times a month over the next few months] and the one I liked most of all: 8. From my favourite media person - "Hello John, you might remember me from XXX, it's YYY. My editor's been reading your blog and would like to talk to you about maybe writing for us on a bi-weekly basis on your views on the telecommunications industry and the politics affecting it. [When I was 17 years old my second career choice was journalism but it's far too late for me to be paid a journo's casual rates now] I wish I could actually put the names and organisations to the above quotes to make it truly clear how insane the tiny part of the world Exetel 'inhabits' has become but perhaps you can get the general idea. In between these mind jolting interruptions i've been trying to make some sensible changes to Exetel's service offfering prices but somehow I haven't been able to concentrate sufficiently as I have a nagging feeling that things are changing in the comms marketplaces and in the companies with whom we compete that I know nothing about - but should. Perhaps the most obvious change is about to happen and it's 'hovering' just beyond my peripheral vision as I keep getting 'almost' insights in to a sea change in ADSL pricing which I can't quite put my finger on. It's got something to do with Telstra Retail 'butchering' their own ADSL1 base (as well as other ISPs) in their increasingly frantic efforts to move as many users as possible to their ADSL2 'bundles' on long term (two year) contracts but I just can't figure it out. While their predatory tactics are certainly hurting Exetel, and I can only assume other ISPs with ADSL1 customers on those 900 exchanges) it must also be damaging Telstra's own revenues (and cash flows no matter how huge those are) - most of the ADSL1 customers on those exchanges would be BigPond customers - unless of course they're simply directly approaching other ISP's users and hoping their own users don't notice what's being offered to others? Whatever my mis-imaginings may be - and I freely admit I'm very tired and looking forward to a holiday - there are very definitely things going on that are making a lot of people re-evaluate their current positions. Tuesday, June 3. 2008Whatever Happened To Company "Mission Statements"?John Linton Did they end their 'fad' moment of fame in the 1980s? Did anyone other than HR/Marketing Departments and some high priced 'advisory agencies' ever get any 'value' from the publication of such things? Is anyone in business other than 'for the money' today - or ever in the past? When you think about it does any commercial company ever have any 'mission' at all other than to make as much money as quickly as possible? Or as El Sol might say - "My principal responsibility is to maximise shareholder value?" I noticed on the back of the card of a recent visitor to our office that their company had, not a mission statement, but 'seven signals' which were: recruit and retain the best talk straight empower and trust continuously grow and improve aim to be famous play to win - think globally have fun and celebrate I thought they were good maxims (except for 5 and 7) and I think Exetel actually runs its business on those bases but are they worth putting in to writing and do they really 'do anything' for a company? I really don't know. Back in my IBM days there used to be the single word "THINK" displayed in stair wells, canteens, reception areas, factories and, of course, in every office. I am thinking about this 'mission statement' concept at the moment because I had a fairly long discussion with some people yesterday about Exetel raising some money to open an operation to sell services in the European Union. As the sort of money we would need to do that is trivial (less than $A5 million) the 'advisors' we were talking to about this said the money would most easily be raised via 'private placement' to a few of the 'advisor's' investment clients without the complexity of a public listing. The 'story' that can be told about Exetel's commercial progress to date is 'impressive' enough in general terms to meet the requirements of such a raising and the outline EU plan and the 'research' behind it was not an issue - given that a lot more detail would be required but there was no problem with the costings and sell ponts based on the current information that I provided. We covered, in planning detail only, the ROI scenario and the eventual upside of the shareholding exit strategy via public float (this being, in general terms, a 'mezzanine investment'). There were no major issues with any of the concepts or with any of the likely scenarios based on what Exetel had done to date and what it was likely to do over the comng two years. The rationale that the current FTTN fiasco made it difficult for a company like Exetel to invest any 'surplus' of its time and management efforts in Australia over the next two years was also more easily understood than I would have thought prior to the meeting. The only issue was the "why" - which was translated into what is the company's overall objective in being in business at all that would persuade entities to invest in the EU/Exetel venture? Making a better ROI for the investors than anything else available to put money into with a higher likelihood of success was not going to be a 'clincher' apparently at this low level of money handling - people who did this sort of investing wanted a massive, and admittedly 'blue sky' upside, or they wanted to feel really good as well as get the highest possible return on their, in this instance, trivial amount of money. They needed, as one person put it, "an aren't I wonderful" dinner party topic. The concept of lowering costs for Australian users of communications technology was dismissed without a second thought as was the concept of generating profits that would be used to protect and regenerate Australia's endangered fora and fauna. I didn't bother, after that, to mention investing in raising opportunity levels in third world countries. So what is Exetel's "Mission Statement"? I have no idea beyond the reasons we started the company which was to earn a commercially sensible return on the money we invested while helping lower the costs of communications for those Australian customers who chose to use our services. It looks like if we are to do the 'EU Thing' (as someone I was talking to yesterday referred to it) we are going to have to use our own money or forget about it as I can't bring myself to make 'blue sky promises' and I'd find it almost as hard to invent some reason we are in business that isn't what has already been dismissed. Monday, June 2. 2008"Financial Success" Comes At A Severe CostJohn Linton This financial year is drawing to a close and I read the June recurrent billing report with greater interest this morning than I usually do as I try and glean every last 'nuance' from the actual facts I have available to me before consigning next year's operating plan to other people's scrutiny. The good news, for Exetel, is that we will slightly exceed both our revenue and profit targets for FY2008 and, in financial terms we have had another good year as well as another 'record month' in terms of recurrent revenue increasing just as it has every month since we've been in business. The 'bad' news is that, in terms of market share, we have fallen back for the second successive year - particularly in NSW which has always been our biggest marketplace (probably because it was our only marketplace for 18 months). Our revenue growth has, to a large extent, been delivered by a higher revenue per customer rather than, as in the past, by a simple growth in the number of customers. Another report I read this morning gave me some satisfaction that we had made a lot of progress in one area of our business on which we have been working for a very long time. It was the monthly chart of the average waiting times an Exetel customer would experience. The average for May was 59 seconds which I doubt that ANY support function in Australia could get anywhere close to that level of efficiency on a Monday to Friday, business hours, basis. Details can be found here for the last two months: http://forum.exetel.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=324&t=27043 Our current goals are now to achieve similar results for the expanded hours of 8.30 am to 9.30 pm on weekdays (which is already being, successfully, trialed) and then to again expand the support hours to week ends and to public holidays which is scheduled to happen once the company is in operation early in the new financial year. We have been going through the pains and dramas of upgrading our two main Sydney PoPs from mid range Cisco routing to high end Cisco routing with all the issues that brings with it in terms of short term service inconsistencies for the past six months. We are almost at the end of that program now and the new power and simplicity it will deliver will help us return to much higher end user satisfaction levels from now onwards. Similarly the new, much lower, IP pricing comes in to effect for a substantial part of our back end connectivity starting this month and the back end IP connections will all be reduced in price, allowing them to be increased in delivery capacity more affordably, by the end of July. We are also continuing to work on getting more bandwidth provisioned by our suppliers on their parts of the network between our customers and their hand off points but that remains a significant difficulty. I'd like to be as confident with our P2P control implementations and our caching service delivery but I'm not. This remains the only, major, 'uncertainty' in terms of the improvements we need to make to Exetel in the coming 12 months and we have a way to go to ensure that happens. I'm not sure why problems persist but we will continue to work through the issues as we find them with the manufacturers of the equipment and the software. Our other major challenge, excluding making the current services and their support facilities better, remains providing HSDPA services which, despite my brief periods of optimism is proving difficult to 'nail down' in terms of executing a 'final' contract. I have little doubt that we will make the Sri Lankan company a success but their remain several major issues to be dealt with in that 'venture' and whether we do proceed with a UK based EU offering has yet to be even sensibly discussed. So, in financial terms, FY2008 has been the most successful year in Exetel's short 'history'. The cost of achieving financial success has come at the severe cost of much slower than desired growth and, much worse than that, we have disappointed some of our customers in ways that I never thought we would. I need a cup of coffee - preferably with a large Scotch. Sunday, June 1. 2008Crooked Practices And Sheer Criminality Rife In Communications?John Linton Reading the articles about SPT not paying its personnel and attempting to coerce them in to resigning to avoid paying them redundancy was unpleasant reading over the last three days of last week and it leaves an unpleasant taste in the mouth of most people with some semblance of an ethically based upbringing. I had recently written on the widespread practice among larger service providers of grossly, and persistently, overcharging wholesale and retail customers and the huge sums often involved in those practices. Today I read this article in the Australian: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23785696-643,00.html highlighting the dishonesty of the very highest executives in this particular company but also pointing out that the resellers/franchisees whom they were defrauding were far from honest themselves - at least in the one instance of the company bringing the action. All of these 'straws in the wind' can't help leading a disinterested observer into believing that the communications business is operated by by very unpleasant people more resembling crooks and thieves than competent 'captains of industry'. Even more unpleasant was the statement in the article that Stupid Stephen had appointed the chairman of the company convicted of committing the frauds to his FTTN "Expert Panel" - though I suppose that has a certain irony given the whole nature of that 'tender' process - a person of less generous spirit than I am might say you'd always rig the jury if you wanted to be sure of getting the result you had promised Telstra. It's hard to believe that he didn't know about this law suit (or hadn't been told by the person concerned) though, and how it would look when it became public knowledge - I don't refer to him as 'Stupid' without good reason. There is no doubt that providing communications services in Australia (if you aren't Telstra) is a very tough business with relatively low to very low margins available to most providers (with the exception of TPG who have developed the only profit performance that not only approaches Telstra's but apparently exceeds it). Tough marketplaces and low margins certainly demand very hard work, very long hours and, for the most part, lower levels of reward than apply to almost every other commercial endeavour. These conditions also appear to blur the lines between honesty and dishonesty more often than you'd expect based on media reports over the past week. I have met, on a business basis, many 'executives' and more than a few 'business owners' involved in the communications industry over the years and have read and been told about a huge number of 'instances' that most reasonable people would find immoral or unethical or just plain illegal and callously crooked. I have, several times, felt the urge to wash my hands after a handshake with some of these people and while not metaphorically "counting my fingers" after shaking hands with several of them - I've certainly been aware that what I was being urged to do bore no relation to what would actually be done - by them. It's rare to meet an honest and straightforward person in this industry - at least in my experience to date (which may be a massive indictment of the sort of person I am and therefore the people prepared to meet with me or alternatively I may need a mental health check up for gross paranoia). This feeling has become so pronounced over the years that I have progressively moved towards an almost 'Howard Hughes' method of interlocution in that I have an almost 'horror' of meeting with people I am unfamiliar with and being exposed to their lying and I now much prefer, as much as possible, to only communicate with suppliers via email and written contracts. It's far more difficult to lie in writing than it is verbally (not just because of the 'evidential' nature of the communication but, for whatever reason, people don't feel as comfortable in writing lies while they have far less reservation about 'speaking' lies). I think I've probably taken this business methodology too extremely over the last one or two years and must take a less stringent attitude towards meeting 'business' people if only for the reason that I deprive myself of using 40 years of verbal business skills in getting the best deals for Exetel. However, when you look at the media articles over the last few days you can't help feeling that there are a lot of people in the communications industry that a sensible person is much better off not meeting. ....now where did I put that halo......... |
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