We have reached 2021! All staff have returned from compulsory leave over the merry festive season, fully refreshed and prepared to devote full attention to contractual obligations and KPIs. As CEO, I, Hector Lannible am looking forward to another year of success, and proper reward for my fulsome endeavours.

Our financials remain astonishingly, spectacularly rock-solid; surveyed staff report Invigorated team engagement 24/7 with full focus, and unstinting praise for the calibre of their top management.

Project Overlord to re-insource services has not diluted the clarity of demonstrable accountabilities, with data and digitisation abstract acceleration improvements maximising value from our remaining vendor spend.

Meanwhile, our rivals’ overt incompetent mismanagement, plus COVID seismic headwind disruptions continues to wreak destruction – these greatly assist the unparalleled Stoney Goose Ridge growth trajectory mission.

For several years, our country’s educational and training institutions became obsessively fixated on luring international students and thought this windfall expansion would continue like a magic pudding. But the supply dried up, embarrassingly leading to redundancies, distressed asset sales, raids on fiscal reserves, and attempts at recapitalisation to remain afloat. Similarly, many of our alcoholised rivals fantasised on export opportunities primarily to one Asian country. The chickens have come home to roost, like rabbits in the headlights, leaving management with egg on their red faces. Demonstrating pedestrian inertia, their belated – meaningless – alleged headline strategy is to “pivot”.

Festooned with bonuses and rewards from the bonanza growth, they boasted with messianic fervour of their profound business acumen and strategic global initiatives. They basked in first-class junkets, seminars and other love-fests broadcasting their vison and expertise.  Now, they hypocritically seek life support subsidies to alleviate their inept “strategies”, squealing and bleating about their former economic contribution and bemoaning damage to their precious communities. The return of their undeserved STI doesn’t enter their reckoning, and ongoing pain is confined to their underlings, suppliers and downstream impacts. The mouthpieces have lost their credibility foothold leaving big shoes to fill. We hope assorted Government entities are not gulled yet again by these parasitic PR advocates and lobbyists.

Other businesses set up or repositioned solely to exploit niche marketing opportunities based on inbound tourism of one country. Surprise! They set up for eternal growth; and have been taken aback. They do not deserve to be propped up if their model is so inflexible. Business demands nimble agility. These companies should have focussed on their lifeblood knitting instead of the artwork of their business cards, advertising in foreign-language vehicles, and elaborate web paraphernalia.

These enterprises never bothered with risk assessment, contingency plans, exit strategies and other management fundamentals; my own extensive applied solution contributions have been well publicized within management journals and studied by MBA candidates, and countless CEOs, Boards and so on.. But clearly others lacked the imaginative interdisciplinary competency to apply these simple process template matrix panaceas.

I am completely sympathetic and compassionate for the casualties of corporate greed and bungling; the survivors are worthy of our care and support – but their senior management merits derision and lifelong exile from leadership.

Stoney Goose Ridge is virtuosic at exploiting support schemes, but entirely within the spirit and subject to the usual stringent qualification and reporting necessities; we abhor ad-hoc white-board special supplementary arrangements based on megaphone diplomacy and subliminal blackmail. As always, we support whistle-blowers to report improper activities of our competitors.

In the world of wine, short- to-medium-term, consumers will benefit through vinous firesales from companies desperate for cashflow from their excess stocks. The companies don’t care that much of the wine has been “tweaked” (aka sweetened) for export.  The use-by date looms for their inventory bloat. It’s a race to the bottom. When our antennae decoded and translated whispers, we rapidly diverted stocks to various insatiable export markets – clamouring for our product suite – just in time to avoid disruptions, truly a tribute to our Enigmatic intelligentsia.

And Stoney Goose Ridge has capacity to expand our footprint, to maximise the commercialisation opportunities by offering pitiful payments to our ham-fisted rivals for swathes of stock. We are vigilant for recruitment of discarded and disaffected staff. We thrive on volatility, fully leveraging the pipeline of interested mandates.

Celebrity endorsements of thought-leading influencers have been achieved. Our forensic scrutiny ensures no scandal or inappropriate historic actions affect potential sales, with iron-clad contracts ensuring behavioural value alignment compliance guarantees. Our customers are also happily cemented into lifestyle category relationships.

Our attention focuses on the cascade of launches of our excitement-inducing plethora of iconic innovative brand extension labels. New products are waiting in the wings just around the corner on the horizon. This confounds our competitors who wonder “what happened”?

We are fully prepared for the anticipated wannabe copycat attempts, typically with inferior products hastily cobbled together and pitched at lower RRPs. Truly shameful. Our legal forces are on red alert for even minuscule breaches to be punished with exemplary damages.

Vintage has started, and “best ever” is our mantra, regardless of climate or circumstances.

Inspirationally yours in 2021, Hector Lannible