telcoinabox

Welcome to the first edition of “Engaged” the new Telcoinabox newsletter. It is part of our commitment to share with our partners, suppliers, family and friends what is happening within the Telcoinabox extended family.

As this is the first edition I thought it appropriate to provide an overview of the business, what we have been focused on and where we are going as a company. Telcoinabox has a very strong and distinct culture and a part of this has always been an “open book” philosophy. With this in mind, I share with you my perspective of the company and where we are going.

Even today Telcoinabox is unique in what we do, and how we do it. We still have very little competition in our core business. Our purpose, “To enable you to grow through a reliable support framework and leadership committed to innovation and creating opportunity” is central to everything we do and if you ever come and visit the NOC in Sydney you will hear and see our purpose used by all our staff.

So what have we been doing?

We made a conscious decision last year to take a 12 month view on moving the day to day operations and management to a senior management team. With this in mind, we pulled back and worked on strengthening the foundations of the business to allow for greater sustainable growth which benefits every relationship we have, including franchisees, service providers, vendors/carriers and our internal staff. Every person in every team has been involved in the transformation of the business. Our teams have documented and published over 2500 processes and procedures that are now in use on a daily basis. This is a long and laborious task, but our people have embraced this program with the enthusiasm and passion we could only dream of.

We have made huge investments in both systems and processes to create a "reliable support framework”. We have also invested heavily in support (BAMs, NAMs and WAMs) and ongoing training programs to assist our franchisees and service providers to grow both personally and financially. As a result we have had to remove some of the road blocks to the transformation process which has been difficult but vital to the success of the business. This has included people, systems and vendors. All were given opportunities to "step up" and if they did not an alternative was found. John Jacob has been an enormous part of the transformation process and has provided invaluable training and guidance to all the teams throughout the last 12 months.

Across all teams, we now have record ticket response and resolution times, call answering times, abandonment rates and much greater consistency and accuracy of information. This has helped both us and our providers run their businesses more efficiently. We have seen vast improvements in all 4 areas of time, money, resources and communication (both internal and external).

Thank you to those franchisees who filled out the FRI survey (75%) which has shown

1. Our improvement on last year and
2. We far outstrip the industry benchmarks in pretty much every area of the business. In the last 12 months we have been recognised in a number of awards including:
   • BRW 7th Fastest Growing Company
   • BRW No 1 Fastest Growing Franchise
   • BRW 4th Fastest Starter

This has helped grow the exposure of the business and many of our providers have used this to great effect to grow their own business. However, we still have much to do and I am adamant that the business continues to operate "on the edge of chaos". By doing this we will not "rest on our laurels" and will continually innovate both internally and externally.

Utilibill is the centre of our universe and we continue to invest in improving its capabilities and efficiencies. We made some big decisions to ensure that Utilibill meets our expectations and this is now the focus of Morgan Duncan, a fellow founder of Telcoinabox, who has a passion for the Utilibill platform that none can match. Lucy L'Angellier was also moved over to the operations of Utilibill due to her experience and knowledge of the billing process. This move has reaped many rewards for Telcoinabox as she understands our business intimately.

Some big investments in the platform have meant that we now are able to:

• Provide you with a wholesale invoice approximately 20 days sooner than before
• Get end-customer bills out in 2 days (aiming for 1 day)
• Move to automatic payment allocations (Money-Go-Round) leading to greater than once per week clearing of funds to service providers
• Give you more control to manage customers and their services efficiently and quickly

Other investments internally have meant that every part of the business is now measurable and therefore predictable. All team leaders now have access to a very advanced reporting portal including their own profit and loss reports, monthly statistics on cost per call/ticket, response times and costs and revenue per head. On July 1 Paul Line (General Manager) and Claire Smith (National Operations Manager) will officially take over the running of the day to day business with full P&L responsibility.

So where are we going?

We are continuing to invest in

• Creating more time, resources, communication & money
• Franchisee growth through ongoing training and support
• Service provider growth and support (some big changes here)
• The Utilibill platform

We are currently drawing up a roadmap of new products and services to drive growth through opportunity and product innovation and we will continually strive for low levels of “chaos” to drive evolutionary change (as opposed to revolutionary change).

It is now the time to expand overseas. We are currently live in the UK which is going well. We will soon be in New Zealand and we are currently negotiating carrier agreements and advertising for a Master Licensee to operate and build the NZ business. The UK is performing well and is testament to our unique model. Damien Gould is working like he has never worked before and loving the challenge of setting up a business from scratch. Much of what he is doing will set the scene for what is required in other countries. Many of our franchisees and service providers have expressed interest in the UK and NZ.

JJ (John Jacob) is heading up our international expansion strategy while continuing to work with our teams in a lesser capacity. John is also helping with re-engineering the service provider channel, as we strive to be “best in class” in this area.

So how do we look financially?

We have a strong balance sheet and our profitability is healthy. This year (2008 financial year) however, will see a reduction in profit due to

• Investment in teams (labour) and systems
• Introduction of lower trigger points for pricing tiers (lower carrier margins)
• Owners finally being paid commercial pay rates
• Investment in the “Business Prosperity" program to help you grow your businesses
• Legal fees with terminated master franchisor and new franchisee and service provider contracts

In many respects 2008 has been a "sacrificial" year in terms of profit as we gear the business for long term sustainable growth. A solid Telcoinabox benefits the whole family from vendors/ suppliers to franchisees and service providers and of course staff and their families.

I hope this helps to give an insight into our business and it demonstrates our passion and commitment to the business. Whether you are reading this as a service provider, a vendor or a staff member, I want to thank you for your custom, support and passion. I sincerely hope you enjoy this edition, and future editions, of Engaged and look forward, as always, to your feedback.

Author: Damian Kay
Email: damian@telcoinabox.com