telcoinabox

Welcome to the second edition of engaged, keeping you informed on what’s been going on in a whirlwind few months for Telcoinabox. This year’s annual franchise conference, held in Sydney for the first time, was undoubtedly the highlight. To get the juicy details on the goings on during conference week read Tom Fry’s conference diary in this issue but suffice to say that every year we seem to raise the bar a little higher.

This year, according to your feedback, was no exception. Featuring, for the first time, senior representation from our major suppliers not to mention detailed training on Optus mobile and Blackberry, some great workshops and a karate-style board breaking exercise aimed at turning fear into confidence, there was plenty for all delegates to take away and apply in both a business and personal capacity.

As usual it wasn’t all work-work-work and, on the social side ten-pin bowling, karaoke and a gala awards dinner on Sydney Harbour were enough to deliver the required quota of fun. Finally, a fast and furious charity auction (ably presided over by Brendan Hede from Westalk – thanks again Brendan) that raised thousands for our Oxfam 100km walk teams finished the event on a high and sent at least one of the Optus management team home with a snowboard!

While on the subject of the Oxfam walk please join me in congratulating the two Telcoinabox teams who, after months of rigorous training, completed this grueling event and raised bucket-loads of money for charity. If you think this sounds like a nice stroll in the park then I suggest you read Tash Kay’s article where you can get the inside scoop on just how tough a 100km walk is.

Broadening our horizons outside of Telcoinabox, anyone who hasn’t been hiding under a rock for the last few weeks would have seen that it’s also been a grueling time in the financial world (as your superannuation fund statements will no doubt remind you). The “credit crunch”, as it’s now universally come to be known, has taken a huge toll on some of the largest financial institutions in the USA and Europe resulting in unprecedented government intervention and financial rescue packages running into the trillions of dollars. John Paul Getty once famously said “If you owe the bank $100 that’s your problem, if you owe the bank $100 million that’s the bank’s problem” to this we can now probably add “If you owe the bank $100 billion that’s the government’s problem”.

So what does all this Wall Street chaos mean for “Main Street” and, more importantly, for you and your business? Don’t miss Damian’s article for some top tips on what to focus on to ensure that your business can weather the approaching financial storm. We’ve often said that the telco industry is well-placed to ride out a recession, it seems like we’re about to find out.

To end on a positive note we should all take heart from some encouraging signs for our industry that it’s not all doom and gloom. Recent figures released by Australian telecommunications analyst Paul Budde show that the telco market in Australia is still showing healthy growth and that growth is set to continue at almost 5% for both 2009/10 and 2010/11, well above the rate of inflation and impressive for such a large industry, with broadband services, mobile services and increasingly mobile broadband services leading the charge.

I hope you enjoy this latest edition of engaged and, as always please let us know what you think of the content and what topics you’d like to see discussed in the future.

Author: Paul Line
Email: paul@telcoinabox.com