Advertised Value of Telstra
Discuss about the Telstra Corporation Limited and Controlled Entities.
Company’s values show the level of commitments that the company has express in giving service to customers or stakeholders. The risk level of the organization, on the other hand, can reduce the ability of the company to deliver on its values and commitments. Risk management is one area that helps mitigate the risk that can destroy the image of an organization. Corporate governance is another aspect of the organization that plays an important role in company’s relationship with other stakeholders within the broader perspective. A more understanding of the corporate governance and risk management analysis of Telstra Corporation Ltd is necessary. Telstra is the Australian largest telecommunication company that offers a variety of services such as voice call network, internet access, broadband and TV services among other services. The company has many values that are documented in the strategic statement, advertised values and what it stands for. Telstra has faced challenges that saw many service outages and bad company reputation. The main aim of this paper is to audit the values of Telstra and risk from various perspectives.
Telstra is an Australian largest telecommunication company that offers various communication services such as voice calls, internet access, and Television services among other massive products. The company has advertising platforms and documents that show its values commitments and performance. The company has various sustainable activities that the company uses to promote itself to stakeholders (Telstra Corporation 2017). The primary stakeholders for the company are the customers that the company aims to reach through their sustainable practices. The sustainable practice that the company focuses on includes community investment that aims to benefit is people regardless of their demographic orientations. According to sustainability approach of Telstra that is documented in the annual sustainability report, the company has a sustainable program the focus on various stakeholders apart from customers. Firstly, employees are also important stakeholders of the company and are in involved in the strategy of employee engagement. Secondly, the company sets an environmental leadership that assists in advancing the company sustainable practices. Thirdly, the company as an elaborate sustainable governance that leads the team that promotes the company’ sustainable policies. The community is another set of stakeholders that are also involved in the sustainable policy. The company list the government as a key stakeholder that are also involved in the day to day activities of the company through licensing and the government depend on the level ranging from the local to the national level (Jackson 2016).
Processes to Monitor Review and Promote
The company’s values statements can be divided into three and these include the strategic statements, core values and what the company stands for. Firstly, values statement as contained in the strategic plan includes the vision of the company, mission and core values. The vision of Telstra is based on the statement ‘To improve the way people live’ and show the commitment of the company towards changing the way people in Australia live. The mission of the company is also based on the statement ‘We build technology and content solutions that are simple, easy to use and valued by our customers. We strive to serve and know our customers better than anyone else.’ Lastly, the core value of the company is divided into three and these are service and respect, integrity and trust, and teamwork and accountability. These are values contained within the strategic plan of the company. Furthermore, the company is driven by a culture of collaborative and innovative, customer-driven and winning the culture. Within the strategic plan, Telstra indicated its commitment to serving customers through a collaborative approach as it also strives to win within the country competitive telecommunication industry (Telstra Careers 2018).
Secondly, the advertised or marketing value of the organization can be viewed based on the core values and what the organization stands for. The advertised value of Telstra is majorly based on some elements that include better care, working better together, and making complex things simple. Firstly, Telstra treasure it values of better care that it tries to offers to customers within the country and regionally. Secondly, working together with other stakeholders that to realize the vision of the company of bringing change within the telecommunication industry of Australia. Thirdly, another value of the company is to make the complex technologies to become simple and this is especially with the emerging technologies that seem complex. Lastly, the main value of the company is to foster change in the telecommunication industry within Australia. The change value of the company is one of the areas that company has placed its focus as it seeks also to work on other values (Telstra Corporation 2018).
The company stands for change in the telecommunication industry of Australia and Telstra does this through various changes in the network and service approach. The main focused value for Telstra is driving change and this overrides various other values of the company. The company seeks to bring change in the telecommunication industry of Australia. To focus on this value the company has an elaborate sustainable policy that aims to bring change to the community touching all the stakeholders involved in the value chain of the organization. To build on the other core values, the company advertises itself through series of actions. The company stands for change and this is forecasted through the anticipated changes evidence in network growth, traffic network and digital technologies. The company tries to bring these changes to match the telecommunication changes that are seen in Australia and globally. The purpose of this value is to take responsibility for every action within the telecommunication industry within the country (Telstra Corporation 2013).
There are many different processes and procedures that the company has put in place to monitor, review and promote the values of the organization.
Telstra has governance strategy that is put in place to safeguard the sustainability interest. The company has put in place various processes that are involved in monitor, review and promote sustainable policies. Firstly, transparency and accountability is the value of the organization that aims to build stakeholder trust on the company hence increasing the reputation of the Telstra in the telecommunication industry of Australia. To ensure a more transparent and accountable approach for the company the company focuses on reporting and monitoring of the actions of the organization (Sheehy 2015).
Firstly, the company identifies social, economic and ethical issues that are affecting stakeholders. The company has put in place processes to identify social issues that are likely to affect various community within the telecommunication industry with the view to change or prevent these issues. The main focus is to provide sustainable telecommunication services to stakeholders that our customers and the community (Telstra 2016).
Secondly, the company also reviews current and emerging issues that impact telecommunication and information system of the country. The company has also put in place process to review the emerging sustainable issues that have a direct and indirect impact on the operation of the company within the telecommunication environment. The main focus of the review process is to check on the technological and digital issues that are emerging within the industry in Australia (Giesler & Veresiu 2014, pp 849–867).
Thirdly, Telstra assesses the capability of the company to address issues that influence the operation and take the opportunity available. Another process that the company uses to address the issue of changes in the operation is to assess the capability of the company and its response capacity to address those issues. Through various management units of the company has been put in place are sued to assess the performance and ability of the company to deliver on its promises (Telstra Corporation 2013).
Fourthly, the company uses the feedbacks received from stakeholders to evaluate or review its sustainable values within the community. The company has feedback platform where it receives feedback from customers and other stakeholders on the performance of the business or commitment of the company to its values. The feedback review process is always connected to the company online platforms where there are comments section that customers have expressed their satisfaction on the level of service (Guardian News 2018).
Over the past five years the company has lead many acquisition that has help to builds the company brand. For instance, in the year 2013 acquired DCA eHealth Solutions and rebranded the company from its previous data consulting firm of Australia. This acquisition together with others the company acquired in the health category to solidify Telstra health interest (Mason 2017). In 2014, the company signed an agreement with the national government that aim to make the company sells HFC networks. In addition, the same year the company also gave Sensis business 70% of its equity which was subsidiary of the company. In 2015, the company switched its focus toward the international market with more emphasis placed on joint venture with particularly Philippines. The Philippines investment failed due to inability to build mobile network in the country. In 2015 also the company changed its leadership when CEO David Thodey was replaced by Andy Penn thereby affecting the governance of the organization. In 2016, the company ended a joint venture with the San Miguel Corporation based in Philippines due to several factors that made the venture unfit for the company (Charisse 2016). The year was also characterized with several service outages that made the company lose trust of customers throughout Australia (ABC News 2018). This outages resulted into the company loss the values of share in the market. Share value after massive service outages dropped by 29% prompting shareholders to demand response from the company. In 2017, Telstra indicated a drop in the revenue by 3.5% making the share value also to drop by 4.5% within the same day of announcing revenue drop. The immediate response was a cut on the dividend leading to another drop in the share price by another 10% upon that announcement. In the same year the company released its corporate governance statement that details various framework and relation with stakeholders within the company. In 2018, the company also suffered the same fate giving warning of fall in profit and this lead to fall in share price 4% following a seven-year share value drop that has rocked the company (Letts 2018).
The evidence in the history of Telstra shows that the company has loss commitment to the values of bringing change. The company had previously focused on giving better services yet the challenges that have rocked the company over the past few years has made the company to lose focus. Firstly, the continuous service outages in the company’s network have weakened the reputation of the company. Secondly, the company also loss focuses on driving sustainability practice that it had previously focused on. The corporate social responsibility was also part of the company’s value yet evidence shows that though the company still focus on the value, governance challenges have affected the company leading to low commitment. Within the company’s strategic goal the company has a clear value of transparency and accountability, currently, these value has not been realized as evidenced by failed customer service (ProductReview.com.au 2018).
In 2017, Telstra released its corporate governance statement that shows the framework on the company’s relationship with its stakeholders. The framework shows communication with stakeholders, competency of management, risk management within the company, policy framework and decision-making process. In addition, the corporate governance statement also includes the level of engagement for various stakeholders for the company with the clear scope of communication. This corporate governance statement shows the framework to which the company is committed to serving customers with integrity and responsibility (Telstra Corporation 2017).
Telstra has a corporate social responsibility that is value-focused and aims to build on sustainable practices. The corporate social responsibility of the company is focusing on three major areas and theses are community, environment and the workplace (Telstra Corporation 2017a). The Corporate social responsibility is managed by Community Relations Group of Corporate Relations. Firstly, the community focus of the company mainly involves organization of various community donations to help build the trust of the community in the company (Kemper, Shilke, Reimann, Wang & Brettel 2013, pp 1954). Some other activities that the company is also involved are donations towards charity and other public relation activities. Secondly, the environment is another aspect that also forms part of the Telstra CSR policy and the company has reported on its environmental performance. The environmental element of the CSR is based on the company’s environmental initiative, greenhouse challenge, and carbon evaluation report. Thirdly, the company has workplace CSR policy that the company started using since 2004 when Telstra received an award for excellent performance in workplace performance (Sheehy 2015).
Interview with various stakeholders particularly with three main stakeholders that include management, customers and shareholders show the performance of the organization in the telecommunication. Firstly, interview of management with an example of Cyrus Allen show the management commitment on the company core values and purpose. The management shows their role to drive customer experience excellence. Management still expresses their commitment to customer service coupled with better good network coverage. A move that currently is placed in doubt due to the low quality of service attributed to continuous service outages. This has destroyed the reputation of the company and its image in the telecommunication industry of Australia (Delimiter 2010).
Interview with the customers shows a poor performance of the company with all customers expressing their dissatisfaction with the customer’s service of the company. In addition, the services outage that been witnessed in the past few years. Many customers show their concern about the commitment of the company to its values. Moreover, the company promised customer care and excellent telecommunication service which of late the company has not realized these values and commitments. Some of the notable service outages occurred on 1st may 2018 and 21st may 2018 that affected many regions countrywide (ABC News 2018). Below is a sample of customers express their concerns about the company performance.
Shareholders interview, on the other hand, has expressed their dissatisfaction with the falling price of their shares they hold on Telstra. Many shareholders currently express their fear on the worsening conditions on the company’s share in the market. Moreover, the company has been suffering low share prices in the company that has been discouraging. The greatest concern is the likelihood of the share prices to continue dropping despite past effort to contain the situation. Some of these interviews have been conducted in various media that include TV station and shareholders are fearing loss of their share value (ACMA 2017).
The company’s integrity is revealed through various aspects of the company’s performance. Firstly, commitment to company’s values has been reduced through poor customer service that is evidence of customer dissatisfaction. Customers express their dissatisfaction with services particularly with continuous service outages that affected the company in the recent times. The history of the company shows that the company has been declining in terms of their customer service performance. The consumer’s comments have been published on various social media platforms showing the extent of the dissatisfaction with services (Graham 2018).
Secondly, shareholders have also expressed their concern about the falling share prices and dividend cut. Since the company started experiencing service outages, the company has also seen a drop in revenue leading to cut on the dividend. Based on the audit of the company’s stakeholder views or perspective on the performance of the company shows low rating among shareholders (Philip 2011). The low rating has particularly attributed to falling price of shares, low revenue and service outages experienced in the recent past. As stakeholders of the company, the most serious concern is on the future of the company in the market provided the continuous dismal performance within the industry (Choros 2018).
Thirdly, management still maintains that they are in the right direction to drive change. The management leads by the CEO express their confidence on changing the face of telecommunication industry. To ensure this commitment is maintained, the company has a comprehensive sustainable management and corporate social responsibility. Management efforts to increase the company strategic position especially in the international market never work. The analysis also reveals that the company tried to invest in the international market with a focus on the Philippines through the deal never worked (Mason 2017).
Fourthly, the values of the company show strong commitment coupled with high customer-driven culture. The three sets of company’s values show the vision and high regard that the company has documented and advertised to stakeholders throughout the company’s marketing and operation. In addition, the company through various statements has indicated the intention to provide excellent services to customer and stakeholders throughout Australia. The main aim of the company management is to drive change from customer level to the community and industry at large (Ramli 2016).
In light of the analysis of Telstra Corporation Ltd, there are some recommended changes that can help the organization. Firstly, the company needs to develop a plan to restore the brand image in the market since the past service performance has reduced the reputation of the company. Secondly, the company needs to improve its system to reduce the risk that is associated with service outages that have also reduced the commitments of Telstra to customers. Thirdly, the company needs to connect the corporate governance and corporate social responsibility with the actual performance in the market to increase the practical implementation of the values committed to customers. The company has clear documented corporate governance and CSR yet are not reflected in the actual performance and therefore the company needs to improve on this (Jackson 2016).
Conclusion
In conclusion, value audit and risk audit of Telstra Corporation Ltd show the company reveals what the company stands for and actual performance. The company stands for change and these are based on core values that include customer drove, integrity and respect, and excellent service to customers. The actual performance of the company shows that the company has lost trust from the stakeholder’s perspective and this is evidence from negative comments of customers, shareholders, and industry players. Management, on the other hand, is confident in their ability to deliver on their commitments and this is also based on the sustainable approach used by the company. In addition, the continuous service outage that has rocked the company is hast tainted the image of the company leading to a bad reputation in the telecommunication industry.
References
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