John Linton We leave for a day in Singapore in a few hours time (at the godawful time of 1.10 am) having completed the operational review late this afternoon. The only disappointment was that there is now no more space at all left in either tower of the WTC and our/my smug assumption that we could take our time in signing for additional space starting with the remaining 20% of the floor we currently occupy. So much for smugness. When we came to Sri Lanka almost four years ago both towers were virtually empty and, because of the ongoing civil war and the frequent 'incidents' around Colombo there was zero interest in office space and those companies with a presence in Colombo were pulling out on a frequent basis. Today there is a waiting list for floor space in the WTC and we may be able to get the remaining 4,000 square feet of unoccupied space on the 35th floor of the other tower - but that is by no means certain. Otherwise we will have to find alternate accommodation which is almost as difficult to do. A bad miscalculation on my part.
Other than that we have had a very productive review and have addressed the remaining issues 'left over' from the previous 'regime' and continued to develop some new initiatives. While we were here Clarissa and Clare were in the final stages of training two new business sales teams which very shortly will add a further 14 people to our business/corporate sales force and allow us to prove out the processes we will follow, if they prove successful, to grow our business/corporate operation to eight teams of eight by mid 2012. It is a very exciting project and we have made some very real progress over the past twelve months in refining the processes and plans needed to make more rapid progress over the coming months. Whether we will be successful as we aim much higher than we have to date remains to be seen and I am certainly not counting domestic avians prior to their nativity - but I am getting some pleasant anticipatory frissons of possible success.
We have also organised an advanced English language pronunciation skills course via the British Council Corporate Training Scheme which, while very expensive, could make quite a difference to the overall effectiveness of the Colombo personnel - which is a requirement as we move more of our efforts to selling and supporting business solutions rather than residential ADSL type services. The difference that we need to bring about is not really that great but it is a significant change to the way our current personnel (except those who have worked overseas for considerable times) use the natural rhythms of Sinalhi when they speak the brutally arrhythmic Germanic languages such as English. I don't know whether it will be possible but the nice man from the BC seemed to know exactly what I meant - either that or he was a good salesman.
We also managed to progress the 100% call resolution on the first call for support issues and devised the basics of introducing the same objectives for provisioning and billing which we will begin to put in place before the end of this calendar year. So with those major issues dealt with and a host of less important issues addressed it has been a very positive four days.
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