KEY POINTS:
TelstraClear chief executive Dr Allan Freeth has warned that New Zealand's second largest telco is on a "trajectory to disaster" unless staff work harder in the new year.
In a message designed to motivate staff and signed off with an an appeal "to enjoy Christmas", Freeth warns an expected $14.8 million operating profit could become a $7 million loss because TelstraClear's competitors are getting the better of the firm.
"Right now, we are on a trajectory to disaster ... we are being out-marketed, out-smarted and out-gunned in the marketplace. We are too slow in reacting and we lack the killer instinct," Freeth said in the message, first published by Australia's Communications Day.
Freeth said their parent, Australia's Telstra, was expecting the $14.8 million profit and that at some point in the next few weeks he would have to inform chief executive Sol Trujillo TelstraClear would not hit the target.
"Two weeks ago, Sol's parting comments to me were he feeds those who feed themselves. Well, based on our current forecast, we will be anorexic and starving by the end of this financial year," said Freeth.
He said staff should take their lead from the characters in Quentin Tarantino movies.
"Oh yes, we lack the killer instinct - we are too tame, too lame, and too timid to call ourselves a challenger.
"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."
Freeth then took a swipe at the previous regime under Rosemary Howard, whom he replaced in the middle of last year.
"When I started, I took over a company in operational distress. It had been the victim of not enough investment over four years, poor strategy, and a history of using accounting provisions, created at merger time, to make everyone look good ... but let me be clear, there is no way I am going to let this beat me because this company and I are going to win.
"If you don't believe that - then you are in the wrong place at the wrong time, it's time to move on."
He did, however, note the firm had achieved a number of important milestones including finishing "a good part" of the South Island loop and finished its troubled billing system.
Freeth told the Business Herald he did not resile from any of the sentiments.
The message was a set of notes he used to speak to a group of senior managers in TelstraClear, later made available to all staff so they could get a hint of his views.
"The context of the speech notes was: 'Guys, pull your finger out, we have to get a move on here, we have got a lot to do in 2007, and by the way I am not very impressed with some of your numbers and I do not really want to have to tell the boss that'.
"Those types of messages will not appeal to everybody [but] they certainly do appeal to salespeople."
Head office was fully aware of the firm's performance, he said.
