I reckon Thodey is aware - he was former enterprise division...

I reckon Thodey is aware - he was former enterprise division head (which unfortunately implies some blame as well). Unfortunately the good ship TLS is large and unwieldy. Also don't forget the politics. A lot of the service acquisitions in the last few years were driven by a strategy backed by certain people who have now left (and now the strategy is discredited).

Also with a lot of the bloodletting of the last decade it is arguable that TLS lost a lot of good staff and there are still a lot of duds left in the system that cannot be cleared out without HR nightmare and big bucks redundancies. These duds also have no idea about the real world having been in cosy telstra land for so long. It all feeds in to the attitude of complacency which I'm sure Thodey is trying to defeat.

Ultimately though services is a non core sector for TLS, but it they had any vision at all they would realise that services is the advance guard for the carriage, and that half a loaf is better than none. I've seen contracts lost because accounts insists on the 10% margin or whatever, but had they backed down 5% the customer would have relented (given transition costs, familiarity, etc.). I also agree that an account like WOW is not once you lose. Some of these scenarios I've seen played out the incoming party is actually breaking even or even cutting a small loss just for the prestige of such a large account e.g. a big 4 bank.

Lets hope losing such a large and prestigious contract wakes Thodey up and makes him draw a line in the sand: no more big contract losses. 10 years ago you could not picture ANZ, ATO, WOW accounts being lost could you?