John Linton There are not many days to go until 2010 becomes 2011 and this is a time when it becomes necessary to review, in line by line detail, the almost past 12 months in terms of what you may or may not have achieved and how you performed against the targets you set for yourself before the year started. In my case I do this as a 'final' testing measure that is 'run over' the revised business plan we are putting in place for the coming year. I have found that very difficult to do over the past week as we had to change our 2010 calendar year plan so many times over the past 12 months to meet what were, at least to me, a bewildering array of movements in almost every market in which we operated.
Perhaps it's "seven year syndrome" - roughly the time when the very last of the original premises, and the enthusiasm and direction they brought with them, have 'morphed' into something different over time so that the original 'directions' have become blurred in to something else over time and have become something not as well understood - and perhaps not as appealing to those people within the company who really liked those aspirations.
Whatever the situation may be if anyone was capable of seeing it clearly and then seeing what needs to be done about it - that person isn't me. What I do recognise is that the conditions in the market places in which Exetel operates are so different to the conditions that existed in December 2003 when Steve, Annette and I decided to 'create' the current version of Exetel we might as well be living on a different planet. This has become ever more clear as we reach the end of the planning processes for 2011 and try to come to grips with some of the extremely hard decisions we now have to make.
We have begun to 'end' relationships with some of even the longest term suppliers we have had dating back to the first few months of 2004. This is something that I wouldn't have thought would ever happen. However it does under line the changes that happen in business over time and, in business, seven years is a very long time. Sad in many ways if you are deeply involved in those relationships but probably of not much concern to anyone that isn't. I am not sure how I feel about it (other than obviously differently in each individual situation). Probably there are varying intensities of 'sadness' but, other than the fact that the suppliers concerned will see their Exetel income stream diminish I doubt whether that view is reciprocal. Which probably sums up the need for change - we have taken a very different approach to our relationships with suppliers than they have to us and we have, almost certainly, been very wrong in our attitudes towards our suppliers.
Personally I was sorry to 'say goodbye' to our Vodafone mobile supplier after over six years of doing business with them but, over time they had treated us quite badly and in making a change to Optus we saw an immediate mobile sale increase. Similarly we almost ended our relationship with Verizon until, past the last minute, they did what they always should have done without the unnecessary time delays and theatricals - but that is only a temporary 'stay of execution' and the end is in sight to that relationship. I even had to write formally to Telstra Wholesale (our foundation provider and the reason that Exetel entered this phase of its life) advising them that there was no future in continuing a relationship with them and that because of Telstra's overall 'go to market' policies over the past two years we would not be pursuing any further relationship with them.
So Exetel will reach seven years of existence in this 'phase' of our corporate life in 15 days time and we will accelerate the changes of what we set out to be to something quite different over the coming months. It is of course not as 'clean cut' as that because that would be impossible in practically any sized business. However we will begin to move away from most of the things we have deemed to be an essential reason for being in business to become far more conventional in our aspirations and methods of operation....which will make it easier for the business to operate and therefore will put far less strain on people within the company who have had to work far too hard for far too long.
Sad in many ways - but long over due.
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