Telstra may be simpler, but where will revenue come from?
As Telstra comes to terms with a dramatic shrinkage, its need to branch out beyond telecommunications is more pertinent than ever before, writes Mark Gregory in this crossposting from The Conversation.
Telstra’s recent restructure slashes jobs, simplifies its operations and product offering. But this is just a short-term accounting fix. It does not solve what is for Telstra a long-term problem – finding new sources of revenue.
The new strategy is centred on investment in 5G while making Telstra smaller and simpler. But 5G might not fill the A$3 billion hole caused by the national broadband network (NBN). And the last few years are littered with Telstra’s abortive attempts at investing and building new sidelines in emerging markets and technologies.
Isn’t that just symptomatic of Australian industry in general? No innovation, no ideas or taking random potshots and failing spectacularly (I’m looking at you, Optus *cough* World Cup *cough*)
They’re probably also operating under the assumption that telecomms is so critical that there will always be some kind of government safety net. Probably the same thing that gave Trujillo his chutzpah back in the day.
An anecdote of Telstra in 2007. One day this guy in a white coat and clipboard walks into my office and starts making notes. What are you doing? I am from the Telstra Art Department he says. I’d been there for 15 years and never heard of this Dept. He explaiend there was a huge collection of art and he was doing a stocktake. That tatty print on my wall was worth $40k, he said. Curious I followed him around the floor. The massive oil painting in our meeting room was estimated at half a mil. This was the same painting that had coffee spilt on it and the caterer simply started wiping it with a wet rag. Do you know where the fire tapestry is, he asked? Nope. A massive tapestry commissioned by Telstra had gone ‘missing’ – we found it later in the storeroom, the security giards had been using it for the winter door mat. And what about the stamp collection? It turns out that went walkies mysteriously during the last round of redundancies.
I remember clearly around the very early 90’s at an Intl agency during an audit of art deemed unfit for the new office relocation and then stored in a not so secure location for a couple of years a series of 3 original pencil drawings by David Hockney had vanished. I don’t even want to speculate the worth.
And the coin collection …