Published in APC, October 1996

The concept of building a global information megacorporation encompassing content creation, access software and telecommunications infrastructure is a relatively new one. Australia, though, already has one prime candidate for the job of running such an entity: Bob Mansfield. His career has seen him develop McDonald's into the most successful fast food business in Australia, launch Optus as Australia's second telephone network and (for a brief period) hold the reins at publishing giant Fairfax. Now, in an advisory role as a member of the board at technology integrator and distributor Com Tech, Mansfield has entered a field which draws on all his previous skills while plunging him even more directly into the challenges of technology.

He appears to have taken this new position well into his stride. "I'm basically involved in strategy and passing on any experience that I've got to a great team of people headed up by David Shein [Com Tech's managing director]," he tells me in a sparse meeting room at Com Tech's Alexandria headquarters. "I find it pretty invigorating to stay at the sharp end of technological development in business."

Mansfield emphasises that the commitment is strictly part-time. "My background alludes to a pretty considerable depth of experience in growing companies, and I think I can knock on quite a few doors in the business world if that's what's needed. [But] it lets me do other things." The most prominent of those "other things" is his report on the role and status of the ABC, due in December, and a topic he is fairly unwilling to discuss. "If ever I was going to do a civic contribution in a community sense, the timing was right," he said. "I've got big ears and I'm just absorbing it all -- and it's way too early for any conclusions."

Although protesting his relatively low level of involvement at Com Tech, Mansfield has definite views on the future of converged communications industries and the world of IT generally. "It's interesting. I sum it up by saying there are three boxes," he said. "One is a content box. One is a packaging box, and that's really where I see the skills of Com Tech, where you take content that has traditionally been done in one form and you help that content provider put it in a new form that a new person wants to watch on a new infrastructure. The infrastructure is the third box. So you've got the content, the packaging, and the infrastructure. At Optus, I was 100% in infrastructure, and at Fairfax, I was 100% in the content and now I'm looking at the middle, where you tie the two ends together."

Despite this experience, Mansfield sees dangers in attempting to combine such individual businesses into the global information megacorporation. "I think it's going to be very hard to capture all three elements because they're all so big in their own right and it comes back to focus and expertise. To overlap two of the boxes might be a prospect, but to do all three would probably be creating the biggest corporate entity in the world, and how do you get the focus then? There's no doubt they're all moving down a parallel line, and I think it's going to impact significantly, but it's going to take time. The only guarantee I can give you is that it's going to change. I find that very exciting because with change comes growth, and with change comes opportunity. Because it's so new and it's not your comfort zone, you tend to shut the door and shut your eyes to it and block it out. Well, you can't block this one out."

"Joint ventures and partnerships are going to be everywhere," he continues. "You can genuinely set up a joint venture and achieve that focus, with relevant skills being contributed to it by the partners. Now joint ventures have their pluses and minuses as well, but I think that rather than having one company, having all elements under one umbrella, that you'll see more and more joint ventures."

One such joint venture of Mansfield's creation, Optus Vision, has been swathed in controversy for most of this year over its above-ground broadband cabling. Mansfield takes a longer-term view of the problem. "I think Australia is going to be in the position, if people look back in five or ten years time, where they'll say "Wow!" because you're not dealing with infrastructure that's been in the ground for the last twenty years, it's the very latest. The fact is the competitive element has meant that Australia has taken a quantum leap in recent years to apply this technology at the leading edge of the world. I think it's a great opportunity."

Mansfield admits there are limits to the extent to which competition can be effective (he thinks that more than two national telecommunications providers would be "disastrous"), but he clearly doesn't see much benefit in any other model. "I think sometimes we tend to dwell in our misery of 'two cables running down the street' and all the rest of it -- to have a competitive broadband capability delivered to the door of a consumer is going to give that consumer one hell of an advantage as against having just one delivering it to them."

This point leads us to consideration of how such broadband capabilities can best be exploited, and whether government cuts to technology research funding will help or hinder that progress. Mansfield, once again, shows few signs of doubt. "I think government can do some things to encourage that, but business has got to find the opportunities and follow through on them. I think there's a chance there for Australia to really be at the forefront of developing products that should have an application around the world. And that's the dream, the vision that I'd love to see get built. Now there are no boundaries geographically, because of the technical capability, wouldn't it be fantastic if there was a software development in Australia that was really made possible by this broadband capability, and not only worked in Australia, but was an application that could work around the world to an extraordinary degree of success?

"That would be absolutely fantastic, but I don't think it's government's [role] to do that. People sitting back and waiting for the government is the wrong attitude. The government can be a catalyst in certain areas, but we've got to get off and do it ourselves as business people. Government can be a catalyst for somebody that develops something and they don't have the know-how to go overseas, they can access government departments or government agencies -- that's the role government should be playing, but business has got to seek out the opportunities and go for it."

Having considered that particular technology future, he alludes to a very specific view of the technology present. "You don't have the opportunity today to have a separate IT department that just is a satellite out in left field, because things like the Internet and the progress in software developments really go the core of all the processes of a company," he said. "The job is pulling the information technology developments much closer to the very heart and the very fabric of what a company's all about."

Mansfield also sees value in his being a non-technical participant at a highly technical company. "What I spend most of my time on is not getting carried away with the technology itself, but how can it be implemented such that an organisation can be more efficient and more productive. I keep asking the question 'Well, it doesn't matter how sexy it is, what impact does it have on the customer and what impact does it have on staff?' because that's what business is looking for."

Unusually for an executive, Mansfield has a distinctly Australian appearance, not unlike that of a prize fighter, weathered and seasoned by hard-won experience. His corporate strategy, though, is that of the team player rather than the solitary individual. Initially somewhat tense and closed in conversation, he opens up and begins gesticulating expressively as he speaks of the teamwork cultures he has built at companies in the past. He also emphasises that the public role he has assumed, both in the past as the star of Optus advertisements and now as the re-engineer of the ABC, is not entirely to his liking. "Within myself, I certainly don't need that stuff. If it's required to do an effective job I'll do it, but I don't clamour for it, that's for sure."

The greatest surprise of Mansfield's career was his sudden removal from the CEO position at Fairfax after just four months. He admits to some disappointment with this decision. "I knew what had to be done and I wasn't able to execute that. Having said that, I bear no grudges, you move on. The greatest satisfaction I get is if Fairfax goes on to bigger and better things and I find something that gives me the satisfaction I want as well."

One unexpected consequence of Mansfield's departure from Fairfax and later arrival at Com Tech is his entry into the new world of computer-driven work, where technology is the only personal assistant and everything you need to do, you do yourself. He views this new paradigm with a mix of excitement and regret. "I personally am more productive with a secretarial assistant, because you can do things and get on with the action as against the administrative. When I'm at home at night sending faxes, replying to all my mail and all the messages I've got, I get satisfaction in the short term because I can do it all, which I couldn't a few months ago, but on the other hand I also know I could be more productive doing other things."

This experience also colours his view when I ask him, having reflected on the future of technology, where he sees himself being in five years time. "I hope I'm more in command of my own time, irrespective of what I'm doing, so I can take into account what I want to do for my family and other priorities. Having got off the merry-go-round of frantic business activity for a couple of months, it's made me realise how blinded you get by it and how stilted you become in the sense that your only priority is that world."

For all that, though, Mansfield has, again, a clear answer to the question. "I would like to think it's something involving being able to pass on the benefits of my experience and concentrating basically on the combination of technology to the benefit of staff and customers."