John Linton .....that are the problem - the problems are how to deal with them.
There is never any shortage of 'issues' to deal with in taking part in running a business of Exetel's size and the diversity and novelty of what you get to deal with plus the sheer never ending demands sometimes seem too much for any realistic person to be able to sensibly deal with. It is never the 'big' issues that cause me to think that way - they are the acceptable and familiar part of business life which experience allows you to accept and deal with almost without noticing that they are very difficult and quite 'dangerous' - in a business sense. It's the endless 'small' issues that actually 'wear you down' and make you wonder why you bother.
I am not feeling particularly 'down' (I'm not sure that I know what that sort of feeling is - perhaps that means I am down all the time?) but when I listed the key things I had to do today it was a much longer list than usual and contained a very unusual number of issues that I had never had to deal with before and, really, never expected to have to deal with or even be aware of. Perhaps it is the fact that the 'big' issues have become a daily part of communications business life and the sheer amount of consideration they are demanding makes everything else seem too much of an added burden. On balance, I think it is trying to operate in a set of marketplace and supply environments that not only seem to become more difficult each day but show absolutely no indication of abating, let alone ceasing, to be that way.
I understand, and have for a very long time, that no matter how clearly and correctly any person 'sees' the future, it only partially prepares you for what that future actually entails. You can see the 'big' changes and you can even, mostly, pretty accurately determine what they will entail and what has to be done to avoid the negatives they will bring. In that respect it's pretty much like sailing - you can detect the slight changes in the wave movement, easily see the dark bar on the horizon and feel the change in wind direction and strength - but knowing that you will be enveloped in the storm within 10 or 15 minutes, and having shortened sail appropriately, never quite prepares you (maybe that's just never prepared me) for the actuality of the power that then envelopes you and the scariness of the experience - no matter how many times it has happened to you.
One thing is for certain in uncertain times is that doing nothing, or even delaying doing something, doesn't appear to be an option that it so often is in easy times. That of course poses the major problem of having to make more decisions faster that you have become accustomed to as well as knowing, fore certain, that some percentage of decisions you are making are wrong - to some degree - and hoping that not too many of your wrong decisions aren't seriously wrong and that you are making them fast enough to be able to correct the really bad ones before they do too much damage. So, assuming this scenario is actually what is required at this time it makes for very uncertain days knowing that what ever you are trying to plan for is also being planned for by many other companies all having different views on how they should change what they're doing depending on there own circumstances and how they are 'reading' the same aspects of what is happening as you are.....all with different objectives and all with different budgets to make whatever it is that they decide on happen.
One interesting thing that has happened over the past 9 months has been decline in average gbytes downloaded by Exetel's customers. This has several causes (many of which we would have no idea about) but the most obvious cause has been the 'loss' of the very heavy down loaders from around 3% of our total ADSL customers to less than 0.5% of total ADSL customers. This has made an enormous difference, a positive one, to our bandwidth usage in every State and Territory and, presumably, has made the people who left us as happy as the people who have remained with us. It is the most significant change that has occurred in our business since we connected our first customer over six and a half years ago and is going to be one of the major challenges we now have to deal with.
Another day another puzzle piece to find a home for.
Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2010
ABN 350 979 865 46