John Linton
.....a year that promises to be quite 'interesting' (in the Chinese proverb sense of that word).
Exetel had a record day for new/churn ADSL applications on the last day of the 'old' financial year and let's hope that's an auspice of things to come in this new financial year.
I feel 'virtuous' (in as much as a person who has lived such a decadent life as I have can ever feel like that) in that I completed the detailed Exetel business plan prior to today which is something few companies I have ever been employed by ever managed to do. Mind you, the company I most respected and whose track record over almost 100 years was flawless in terms of its results, often didn't have final plans in place well in to the third month of each year so perhaps having planning completed before the start of each new year is over rated.
The old year ended well and setting a new ADSL application record on the last day of the year was 'symbolic' of the very hard year that FY2008 was. This financial year has started very well with the monthly recurrent bill run setting yet another new record ( as has every month to date) and it always gives me a lift to review the main billing day results. At this time, in two weeks time, I will be 10,000 or so meters above some southern part of the old USSR and between then and now there is a lot to do to get the new year off to a solid start. Our key projects for July are:
1. short list and recruit 6 support engineers in Sri Lanka and, hopefully, begin their training in Colombo.
2. fast track the scheduled implementation plan for the HSPA service
3. double the number of calling cards we sell in July compared to June
4. replace the 6 core and border routers with a Cisco 6500
5. complete the IP bandwidth supplier changes in the NSW Data Centres
6. install the ACT PoP and activate it
7. install direct ADSL2 connectivity in Queensland and Victoria
8. add IP connectivity in Queensland and Victoria
9. increase ADSL applications by a further 10% a month
10. increase our SHDSL and Ethernet business sales by 20% a month
While all of those key objectives are relatively easy as all the planning and preparation for them has already been done in the last months of the 'old' financial year, it always surprises me how much we change our business in a month, every month. There is never any let up in the demands, intellectual and physical, that are required to keep a small business on track and to actually make sure that the changes and progress occur as planned is seldom a easy as writing down a few 'bullet points' can make it appear (particularly when you plan to take half the first month off!).
(I suppose the other way of looking at it is that by taking half the month off you will need to ensure it all gets done, or mostly done, in two weeks).
While I think that the challenges facing Exetel are extremely demanding and, as always, quite worrying in so many ways I console myself that things could be a lot harder and almost certainly are for some larger communications companies and probably, in very different ways, for some smaller communications companies. For instance:
1. Telstra may be increasingly occupied in making sure it doesn't get "broken up" and have to be judged on its merits in terms of efficiency in operation and being able to provide a cost/effective service to its customers.
2. Optus will continue to struggle to build out networks that compete with Telstra on robustness and performance while finessing a way out of getting stuck with actually 'winning' the NBN "tender".
3. AAPT's 'management' personnel will remain internally focussed trying to save their jobs from Kiwi cost cutting and will continue to ignore their customers making the Kiwi cost cutting deeper and deeper in a vain attempt to find a reason for the company to continue to exist in Australia.
4. iiNet will continue to devote most of its management time to thinking up yet more new ways of presenting figures that show investors that they made the right decision.
5. Internode will continue to demonstrate its panic by shrilly (has it now reached shriekingly?) declaiming that "the NBN is all a conspiracy by Telstra" to make non-Teltra DSLAM investments have the value of rusting iron in the local scrapyard.
6. TPG will continue to have to work miracles each month to sustain its unbelievably amazing financial performance in marketplaces where everyone else has failed. (though I see the shares have fallen to a new all time low today of 18 cents).
7. Primus will continue to increase its prices to make the same revenue from their dwindling telephone customer base.
8. [Insert Company Name Here]...[Insert Issue Here].
..............So as there is now 4 weeks work to be done in 2 I'd better make a start.