John Linton .......and the new year's challenges will begin without the briefest of pauses.
The 'old year' will finish with a very strong month with sales far greater than we expected and revenues also far stronger - for reasons that are totally unclear to me. The most surprising component is that new residential ADSL sales have increased almost 25% over December 2010 while for the previous 11 months they registered decreases of 30 - 40% per month over the previous year. I really don't know what to make of that figure. Corporate sales set a new record for December with an extraordinary increase over 2010 but that can be explained, for the most part, by the fact that we have substantially increased the size of our corporate sales force over 2011. Both those 'results' are very pleasing and are very encouraging entering a new 12 month period.
If I was to look at what has been accomplished by Exetel over the past twelve months I would say that surviving as an independent company is very high on the list. There is little doubt that Telstra's continual actions over the past three plus years have made it very difficult for telecommunications companies to survive and the list of 'known' companies that have disappeared over that period is quite extensive - for the ones that were large enough to be remembered - and even larger for the ones too small to be noted, however briefly, in the 'industry media'. It seems likely that at least some of the remaining 'independent' telecommunications companies will go the same way during the new year but whether this is a good or bad thing is arguable. Is thee any 'real' case for iinet to exist when Telstra provides services at a lower cost over a better network for example?
Also high on the list of Exetel's achievements over 2011 was the building of a much larger corporate sales force - almost doubling the size in terms of number of personnel and more than doubling the number of sales over the year. The development of the business and corporate sales operation in Colombo was also an amazing achievement and has progressed much faster than I had expected. 'Wielding' that new 'weapon' to its greatest effect in 2012 will be a significant challenge but also a very exciting one. With the ongoing growth of sales and engineering personnel in both North Sydney and Colombo planned for each month in 2012, Exetel may well become a quite different company over the coming year.
The third, in no particular order of importance, major accomplishment over 2011 was the start of the transformation of our core network from a redundant infrastructure based on 1 gbps circuits to a triply redundant network based on 10 gbps circuits, routers and switches with the largest financial investments we have made to date (although they are 'dwarfed' by the investments planned for 2012). Over the past twelve months we have invested very heavily in both hardware and personnel to ensure that our planned residential, business and corporate sales targets are capable of being delivered.
I could go on but those are the three major achievements for 2011. To still be in business, to still be growing and to have concrete plans in place to grow further in the coming year are, probably, achievements enough in the most difficult year I have personally experienced in my commercial life.
May 2012, for both you and those closest to you, be the happiest and most rewarding year of your lives to date.
Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011
ABN 350 979 865 46
PS: A timely reminder:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/margaret-thatcher/8985015/Margaret-Thatcher-was-right-it-should-pay-to-be-thrifty-but-thegovernment-gets-in-the-way.html