Telstraclear staff e-mail leaks

By NZPA

Friday 22nd December 2006

TelstraClear staff have been given a rev up by their chief executive in an e-mail that says the company is on "trajectory to disaster".

The e-mail has leaked and several New Zealand and Australian newspapers have coverage of it. The New Zealand Herald said the message was first published by Australia's Communications Day.

TelstraClear chief executive Allan Freeth said in the e-mail that the company was facing a loss of $7 million this year, rather than a profit of $14.8 million expected by its Australian parent.

"We are being out-marketed, out-smarted and out-gunned in the market place. We are too slow in reacting and we lack the killer instinct."

He tells staff "we are too tame, too lame, and too timid to call ourselves a challenger". TelstraClear competes with Telecom.

"A challenger winds their opposition, kicks them down to the ground, and then makes them bleed like something from a Quentin Tarantino movie and then finishes them off - fast.

"In comparison, we are like a Walt Disney Bambi character. We are not Uma Thurman in Kill Bill, we are more like Captain Feathersword in The Wiggles, all bluster and no action."

Yesterday Dr Freeth told The Dominion Post newspaper that the figures in the e-mail were a meaningless, worse-case-scenario of where the company could end up. He said he was disappointed that a member of staff had chosen to leak the e-mail, but would not start a witch hunt.

The e-mail was in keeping with the frank style of internal communications at the company, which most staff respected, he said.

TelstraClear was committed to New Zealand where Telecom was being opened to competition.

He said feed back from Australia was supportive, but it was not a good end to the year.

Comments from our readers

No comments yet