John Linton We completed the third day of the SL operational review by late afternoon yesterday and only have the odds and ends to tidy up tomorrow.We have almost run out of space in our current facilities and by the time the latest round of approved hirings are done over the next few weeks we will be at 100% 'occupancy'. One of the last tasks today is to decide whether to continue renting the ever more expensive space where we are at the moment (sometimes it makes you long for the old civil war days when space was being 'given away') or to take the risk of renting space in one of the new buildings nearing completion. We have to make a decision one way or another in the very near future.
I wish I had a better and more positive view on just what will happen to the 'NBN2' and therefore, more importantly, what will happen to Telstra. Without being sensibly sure as to how the next Federal election will 'play out' and therefore what actual future the 'NBN2' has makes it more of a gamble than I like to take, and I am not averse to gambling, on just how successful Exetel will be in providing business services through a range of sizes over the coming one to two years. If our current estimates are correct we could easily double our current personnel levels in Colombo over the coming twelve months and that justifies renting a whole new floor in the current premises providing we can negotiate a suitable take up schedule. Then again we could fall flat on our faces and end up with a fairly large continuing expense for which we have no need. We will settle on a course of action before the end of today.
Over the past three days we have met with three different organisations to explore how we can make lasting improvements to all SL personnel's ability to converse in 'Australian' English. While we only hire personnel with very good English skills it is obvious that if we were able to lift the current standards to something better then both they and the people they and the people with whom they converse would enjoy a better experience. We estimate that approximately 50% of ur current personnel would benefit from such a program if we were able to put one in place (many of our SL personnel speak better English than I do after years of working in English speaking countries - predominantly the UK and North America). We think we may have found the right organisation and Rukshani will work with them over the coming weeks to see what can be done. Perhaps it's a 'mares nest' but if it can be done it will add significant functionality to what already exists.
So, as usual when visiting Colombo for quarterly reviews, the time has flown by and after we complete today's work there is only the depressingly long wait until our flight back to Singapore leaves at 1.00 am tomorrow morning......under normal circumstances it would be bad enough but when you are still 'time displaced' by five and a half hours it is a real pain. Oh well....
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