The New Zealand Herald ran
a story this morning about Kevin Roberts joining the board of New Zealand's Telecom. Some stories honestly just make me go, OMG,
what?
Here is one of my business heroes joining the board of a company (Telecom) that "I hate to love". I continue to support them despite myself, and despite the way they present themselves to their clients. But I would love to love them.
In the interests of full disclosure, our company are pretty big telecommunication users. We are heavily dependent on Telecom for our international telephone presence, and we're big users of high speed internet. Where we can, we support Telecom, but despite that I often joke that I'm sure there's a dart board in a Telecom lunch room with my face on it. I know I am extremely frustrating for them.
Telecom is a company full of great people trying to do good things, and I believe the front line staff really care about customer service. But they are, in my opinion, drowning in organizational misalignment, terrible interdepartmental communication and a pervasive marketing strategy of screwing people over for the last dollar until the competition shows up.
There is very little innovation into online activity. As a business we are unable on a bandwidth basis to afford either the data or the speed of pipe needed to keep up internationally. One of my staff members has an ADSL connection 10 times the speed of our business connection, at one 10th the cost.
Telecom's strategy to date has caused New Zealand to become internet consumers, rather than content providers.
So why do I support them? Simply, there are two reasons.
- On the whole, although the process is frustrating at times, I like the people. The people I deal with on a day to day basis are pretty skilled, reliable and they care about me. That's a big start.
- Although they're not doing enough, Telecom is the only company investing in any real sense in infrastructure in New Zealand. The rest are largely freeloading. Freeloading doesn't drive competition, it just lowers profits where Telecom invests. (I would love to have seen true and full operational separation of Telecom, but it didn't happen.)
An internet infrastructure based on Fiber should be treated like every other utility created in New Zealand. That is, the government puts it in place then gives it to private industry to manage. The cost can't be justified economically on a per user basis, but it can be on a social one. My vote therefore still goes to the company that invests in broadband to my children's schools etc.
The Herald article says ...
Boyd said yesterday that Roberts had been appointed to boost the board's expertise around "marketing, branding and customer satisfaction" and "Kevin Roberts is one of the world's most innovative and influential thinkers about corporate branding, marketing and customer satisfaction."
Does Telecom have a customer service problem? Of course it does, but not because its staff don't care about customers when they answer the phone. The issue is much deeper. Telecom must accept a lower profit today in the interests of a much greater one tomorrow. Telecom needs to look deeply at investment in its core engineers, its innovators and infrastructure. It needs to give its business customers a way to compete.
Does it have a marketing problem? Hmm, not sure ... everyone in this country knows them.
I hope Wayne Boyd doesn't think all he needs is a clever way to get customers to "love" Telecom. Much more is required, and Kevin, although inspirational and talented, is one voice on a board of people who doubtless believe they are too. As far I can see he has no direct telecommunications experience, so will lack credibility in that area.
He does however come with a framework. In fact he
blogged about FREDA yesterday. It deals with the issues I have outlined above, so hopefully that's a start for him. I hope it doesn't end up being a big distraction from his brand ... or a way for Telecom to continue paying lip service to its own.
Kevin, I'm all up for a challenge, but this one might be a little bigger than a man of even your mana can chew. Good luck.
What do you think? Kevin or Wayne ... Do you care to reply? :-)
UPDATE : Have a look at this
post by Miki Szikszai, very well written and another perspective. His from within Telecom and working with Kevin. I hadn't realised the Saatchi / Telecom relationship, so apologies ... it still however is not the help Telecom needs
UPDATE2 : Kevin has written about his appointment at Telecom, your can find it
here
The New Zealand Herald ran a story this morning about Kevin Roberts joining the board of New Zealand's Telecom. Some stories honestly just make me go, OMG, what?
Here is one of my business heroes joining the board of a company (Telecom) that "I hate to love". I continue to support them despite myself, and despite the way they present themselves to their clients. But I would love to love them.
In the interests of full disclosure, our company are pretty big telecommunication users. We are heavily dependent on Telecom for our international telephone presence, and we're big users of high speed internet. Where we can, we support Telecom, but despite that I often joke that I'm sure there's a dart board in a Telecom lunch room with my face on it. I know I am extremely frustrating for them.
Telecom is a company full of great people trying to do good things, and I believe the front line staff really care about customer service. But they are, in my opinion, drowning in organizational misalignment, terrible interdepartmental communication and a pervasive marketing strategy of screwing people over for the last dollar until the competition shows up.
There is very little innovation into online activity. As a business we are unable on a bandwidth basis to afford either the data or the speed of pipe needed to keep up internationally. One of my staff members has an ADSL connection 10 times the speed of our business connection, at one 10th the cost.
Telecom's strategy to date has caused New Zealand to become internet consumers, rather than content providers.
So why do I support them? Simply, there are two reasons.
- On the whole, although the process is frustrating at times, I like the people. The people I deal with on a day to day basis are pretty skilled, reliable and they care about me. That's a big start.
- Although they're not doing enough, Telecom is the only company investing in any real sense in infrastructure in New Zealand. The rest are largely freeloading. Freeloading doesn't drive competition, it just lowers profits where Telecom invests. (I would love to have seen true and full operational separation of Telecom, but it didn't happen.)
An internet infrastructure based on Fiber should be treated like every other utility created in New Zealand. That is, the government puts it in place then gives it to private industry to manage. The cost can't be justified economically on a per user basis, but it can be on a social one. My vote therefore still goes to the company that invests in broadband to my children's schools etc.
The Herald article says ...