Telemedia has global gameplan

By SELWYN PARKER

March was a steady month for Telemedia founder and chief executive Chris Jones. He bought two American companies for a total of $US32 million ($64 million), headhunted a salesman for his European operations, sold his company's software packages to some new telecommunications clients, and spent three weeks away from his Auckland headquarters.

April? Probably more of the same.

Mr Jones, who is 36, is building Telemedia, Auckland-based but listed on the Australian Stock Exchange, into a global company and showing in the process that it can be done from New Zealand. All you need is a year's supply of air tickets, the constitution of a grizzly bear, a master business plan, a multinational staff, a certain comfort in different cultures, and highly-paid salespeople.

Take salespeople and their remuneration. Here, the market rules.

As Mr Jones points out, he's in a global business - 10 countries at last count - and either pays international salaries or shuts up shop.

Indeed one reason why Telemedia listed on the ASX was to attract the wherewithal to pay top sales talent.

"We're competing with Silicon Valley companies," he says. "Private companies can't offer these packages." Telemedia has just hired a new London-based sales director for Europe. He's David Walker, a telco veteran who was enticed from Logica.

Telemedia's salespeople earn a base salary of $US150,000 plus bonuses.

If bonuses don't bring their year's pay to at least $US300,000, they probably are not very good at selling the company's products - that's "enhanced services software" such as voice mail capability for mobile phones. Plus, salespeople get a slice of the action in the form of stocks and options.

But then they're elite. "It takes years to learn the technology and how to sell it," explains Mr Jones, who did exactly that himself before establishing Telemedia nearly four years ago.

"They are doing multi-million dollar deals all the time." Of course, they've got to have the goods to sell. The steady supply of software that gets these hotshot salespeople through the doors of telcos in Asia and Europe is produced by engineers from 14 different countries. Based in Auckland, some arrived with little or no English.

This doesn't worry the much-travelled Jones one whit. "They don't have to speak English to do the job. They're bright and they soon learn it."

In fact, this multilingual staff is a positive asset in the global game. Between them, they can usually muster the same language as most of their clients around the world.

"A New Zealand customer complained that the woman on the help desk was Chinese and didn't speak good English," laughs Mr Jones, who is passionate about cultural diversity. "I said, 'so what, we've got Chinese customers.'"

Insularity has no place in this business. Mr Jones has spent 11 years on the road selling telco software for New Zealand and American companies, made hundreds of flights, developed scores of contacts, and learned tactics that are not in the manual.

"You have to respect people's culture and the way they do business," he says. "If you are not prepared to play their game you will not win. Ninety per cent of companies will not modify their rules."

Patience is also a virtue. In Vietnam, for example, Mr Jones has learned to bide his time to get in the door of a well-connected gentleman known as "The Lawyer" who makes things happen.

Although he grew up here, Chris Jones' management philosophy owes little to New Zealand. "We run Telemedia like an American company," he says.

After all, Telemedia will be judged by American investors when it is eventually listed on the technology-heavy Nasdaq exchange.

Mr Jones never finished a BA but it doesn't seem to matter. The dairy farmer's son's shareholding in Telemedia is worth between $300 million and $400 million.

And that's another thing about building a global business from Auckland. Chris Jones doesn't have a lot of time to enjoy his wealth.

"I've parked all my hobbies. And I don't own a superyacht," he grins.

Still, there's time.