Editorial: Time for the Telecom sideshows to finish

OPINION: The misery and humiliations continue to be heaped on Telecom, and it would take a dedicated soul to hunt down someone who pities the corporation.

After months of debacles around its XT network, complemented by various lesser embarrassments such as a short-lived failure of part of the 111 system and some rude messages sent to customers from an overseas call centre, the company must be struggling to avoid falling into a siege mentality. Its share price has been harmed, senior executives have departed, it is shelling out millions in compensation, the investment community is becoming wary, and its market image – its "brand" – is as tarnished as it has ever been.

Its tortured, bumbling course down the slippery slope continued last week, including the galling revelation that it had given some of its health-sector customers a rival company's sim cards so they could still use their Telecom handsets should the XT system once again fail. Then came the icing heaped on the whole rancid cake, in the form of a publicity splurge for a tell-all sort of book by the corporation's former chief executive, Theresa Gattung.

With impeccable timing, she slipped the shiv deep into her old employer with such observations as, "I, along with the rest of the country, wonder about the propriety of a company making half the annual profits it did a few years ago but paying its executives considerably higher salaries".

Of course, Ms Gattung's own time at the top would never be mistaken for flawless (among countless examples, who could forget her famously indiscreet admissions about the marketing value of confusing the customers) and there is the unmistakable sound of scores being settled as she unloads on the old firm. But she will have a ready audience for her unique if jaundiced insight into the business.

Trouble is, as entertaining as Telecom bashing has become, it is easy to lose sight of the corporation's continued pivotal role in this country. It may have treated customers shabbily, delivered sub-standard products, behaved monopolistically, defied the regulators, treated its senior staff to fat pay cheques while exporting hundreds of jobs to low-cost offshore call centres, but love it or hate it, it remains a linchpin of the sharemarket, the national infrastructure and the economy.

While it has lately outdone itself in running down respect for its image, it shouldn't only be the smooth-talking new boss, Paul Reynolds, worrying about getting the organisation back on track. It is true that if Telecom's position is badly eroded as a result of the current troubles, another corporate will quickly step up to take its place. But its most trenchant critics would have to concede that its cornerstone position in this country is too vital to dismiss its difficulties as an amusing sideshow.

Much about the story of Telecom – and much more than the version being shopped by Ms Gattung – is unedifying. But it now deserves a bit of space to pick itself up, dust itself off, and start demonstrating it has finally learned from years of bad calls and bad behaviour.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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