Staying alive: global survival strategies for the telecom recovery: competitive carrier CEOs across the world are emerging from the telecom firestorm a lot wiser. In this exclusive profile, compiled by telecom commentator and author Grahame Lynch, they tell Telecom Asia what they learned from the collapse, their fears for the future and new survival strategies - Cover Story - Industry Overview

Telecom Asia, Sept, 2002 by Grahame Lynch

"But that works for the corporate and business customers. Camera phones? i-mode? Pirate video? Ask my daughter's generation. We're not going there."

12 survival strategies for telecom recovery

1: Concentrate on cash generation via both trading and divestment

2: Source network equipment from liquidation auctions

3: Aggressively drive down costs of business

4: Don't compete against your customers

5: Strive to preserve corporate memory

6: Reconsider staff layoffs--you may be sacking customers

7: Saturate small niches, don't dilute in mass markets

8: Don't globalize unless you have local partners and knowledge

9: The age of your marketing and product managers should better reflect the age of your customers.

10: Don't forget you are a people business--bad morale doesn't stay within your foul walls

11: Your management ethics and financial performance are always on show

12: Customers want to see evidence you're in it for the long haul

RELATED ARTICLE: Loyalty, relationships give power keys to success.

One CEO who believes in the power of teamwork and partnerships is Ravi Bhatia, CEO of Virtual Communities, an Australian reseller that bundles Internet services, computer hardware and financial products and markets them to affinity groups such as the Catholic Church and the Australian Council of Trade Unions. Bhatia was previously the CEO of Primus Australia, and as he left that company under apparently amicable circumstances, he has continued to support his old colleagues at Primus, using them as the major supplier of his Internet services.

But while Bhatia may understand the enduring commercial value of relationships even after moving on, it seems some of his former colleagues do not.

As one former manager, who declined to be identified, explains: "After Ravi left, US headquarters moved in to assert control and bring in their own managers. There's nothing wrong with that. But, inevitably, the managers who were hired under the previous regime were on the outer and were the ones to leave when there was a round of cutbacks.

"Now, Primus warned these managers against taking customers with them, in some cases with unenforceable legal threats, but inevitably they find new jobs and their loyal corporate customers have a relationship with them and not a company. Speaking for myself, I've had several customers follow me over and I'm a typical case. That's something typical all over the industry and it's the real price of retrenchment. A false economy if ever I saw one."

But not only did Primus lose these customer relationships, but its management's implementation of a financial survival strategy left a lot to be desired.

One former shareholder, who seeing the writing on the wall, shorted Primus stock for a massive profit. "It was some-what galling for staff to see their unit managers shown the door and the squeeze out on creditors and suppliers, when the top management received cash compensation increases of up to 80% and write-offs of million dollar loans if they stayed for another year. It doesn't rank on the scale of Global Crossing or WorldCom, but it does tick people off and create anger," the former shareholder said.