Industry Analysis - Greed (Archived in 2003)

Synopsis

Since the mid-1990s, I have vigorously challenged the constantly misused phrase ‘shareholders value’. Telco used it to end the long-standing telco tradition of long-term investments, the importance of national networks, the quality of service and other good old-fashioned solid business strategies. Instead, they created artificially high share prices by overplaying their large cash-generating businesses. This cash was then misused for ill-considered overseas expansions and a lemming-like grab for 3G spectrum. There was no vision as to where they were going, no strategies on what to do once these massive investments were made and no guidelines for the local operations.