Читать книгу Speak to the Man Called Hope - Lawrence Hall - Страница 4

It was the now familiar voice that Ro heard first. Validation came from responses coming from his second in charge, principal strategist and business case author, Clint Angel. Before Ro could turn around they were both standing right behind him. ‘Good morning, Ro. Do you have a few minutes?’, enquired Sam Bartoli. The floor of the office is all open plan. It enables more desks per floor (reducing the cost per desk ratio), encourages open conversations and lessens the hierarchical divide between managers and workers. All the different business units of the bank who utilise the head office building sit in an open plan environment, except for the office of the CEO. Small meeting rooms exist for private conversations such as the one they were about to have. The others on the six-desk pod glance up curious as to the content of the conversation. ‘We are putting together a business case for Franc and his executive team to outline the business opportunity, the competitive environment led by Wilson Jamieson and the impact of their takeover of our service provider, Atkins Robertson. We need to gather more data about our customers, how valuable they are, how much money we make from them, that sort of thing. Do you have any of that information?’, Sam inquired.

‘Of course.’, Ro replied, ‘Colleen gets a data dump on a monthly basis from Atkins Robertson and uses this to create her monthly management information report. We can either send you a copy or send you a link to the folder in the directory where it is stored.’

‘Great’ said Sam, relieved at the ease of getting what he needed.

‘I’ll send you a copy of the business case document I’m drafting to give you an idea of how we are intending to frame of the opportunity. Have a read and let me know any thoughts and any supporting points you may be able to provide’, added Clint.

‘Things are starting to move quickly’, said Sam, ‘now that Wilson Jamieson has taken over Atkins Roberson. Franc is not keen on our main bank competitor being the service provider of our stockbroking business. Oh, yeah, whilst we are on that, can you send me through any contract documentation of our arrangement with Atkins Robertson? We need to understand if there are any impediments and clauses arising if we notify our intention to terminate the contract.’

‘No problem’, mumbled Ro whilst making notes, ‘I’ll get that from Phil or Alison. Phil is a group commercial manager, he gets involved in contract management with me and Alison is our legal counsel business partner. There have been a few additional schedules added, some addendums and a few additional contracts for other services such as our adviser service we setup last year. We had a step-up in our commission rate because our revenue exceeded the second tier so our split is supposed to increase. Unfortunately, it only exceeds this tier when the value added tax or VAT is added. So, there is a disagreement over whether we get the top tier rate or the second tier. Its worth a few mill to us.’

‘Really?’, responded Sam alarmed, ‘Clint, can you please follow that up and make sure the top tier commission is on the revenue numbers. That should be ours. Ok gotta go.’ Sam was reading his blackberry messages and began to stand from his chair ready to exit. ‘I move at a hundred miles an hour so you need to keep up’, he said as he stepped out the door.

‘Ro, you need to keep these discussions to yourself. They are all private and confidential. Ok?’ said Clint trailing behind Sam.

‘I understand. See you later’, Ro responded.

Ro emailed a copy of the contract to Clint pointing out the section relating to commission and how it didn’t refer to the VAT hence the confusion. Later that day Clint emailed over the business case draft to Ro.

Colleen was standing at the printer in the communications room which is shared by the teams on the floor and includes fax, colour and black and white printers, stationery of all sorts, paper recycling bins, paper shredder, guillotine, workbench and inbound/outbound mail shelves for all the teams on the floor. Colleen had started glancing at the business case document that Ro had printed.

‘What’s this?’ Colleen inquired.

‘Private and Confidential!’ exclaimed Ro pointing to the same words written in watermark format on the front page of the document.

‘Are we changing the business again? What this time?’ said Colleen with some cynicism. She had been involved with the business from the start and had seen two major restructures in those eight years. The latest being the full outsourcing to de-risk the business and make it profitable. This had been achieved but it was only just making a profit of around $5million per year. Good enough for a business operating under ‘care and maintenance’ - meaning nothing strategic. How things have changed.

The next day Ro receives an email flagged ‘Private & Confidential’. Its from Sam and only contains a document and a note saying ‘I’ll call you shortly about this’. Upon opening the document Ro reads that it is a non-disclosure agreement or NDA for short. It basically precludes Ro from discussing the deal with anyone apart from those whom have also signed the NDA. ‘What deal?’ Ro thinks to himself. He reads on. There are no details, only a name, Jonathan Forest Discount Brokers. Ro’s heart quickens. A host of emotions and thoughts hit him. ‘What’s going on?’, he thinks alarmingly to himself. His phone rings, it's Sam.

Sam discusses the development in his usually I’m in a hurry manner and I’m too important to spend time with you attitude. He outlines that buying a business would be the best way to transition away from Atkins Robertson now that its being bought by Wilson Jamieson. Very large corporates often work on the adage of ‘rent before buy before build’. Renting refers to outsourcing, licensing and offshoring services from a provider or vendor who is specialised in that field. Their overhead is likely to be lower and they are likely to be more efficient in providing that service. Buying, as it says, refers to buying a business. Usually one that provides a service which the organisation deems is now more strategic and owning it would enable synergies to be obtained or that business may have high profitability which would add value to the organisation and complement the organisation’s service offering. Build, also as it says, involves building the capability in question. The organisation deems that building provides the best bang for buck, suits its business profile and allows for the best return on investment. In terms of complexity and risk, however, this is usually the biggest risk as cost blowouts can occur.

In this broking business of Mason Thompson it currently rents services from Atkins Robertson. There are no other providers with the services Mason Thompson require in the marketplace. So, if Mason Thompson wants to remove its business from Atkins Robertson it needs somewhere to put it. Using the rent before buy before build means that looking for a suitable business to buy is the next option.

Sam, along with the big 4 accounting firm he has obtained to consult on this deal, has identified Jonathan Forest Discount Brokers as the best fit mostly because Jonathan Forest, 60% owner of the business, is willing to sell.

Jonathan has obtained the services of Everton Marks, an investment bank to identify buyers and establish a tender process. Sam was unable to move quickly enough to gain first rights, mostly because of the fee he would have to pay.. Now, it's down to Mason Thompson and another buyer to battle it out. Sam advises that it's now due diligence stage. Ro needs to complete the NDA and get on a plane to head to the offices of Jonathan Forest for a two day intensive deep dive on the business. He will be joined by Sam and Clint. Jonathan Forest is a good fit because of its technology platform. It's geared toward online and phone business and least focussed on advice, known as full service broking. The platform is custom built from the ground up, is profitable, has 50,000 clients, about 150 staff and includes a deposit book with Wilson Jamieson. Sam advises that the due diligence exercise is time bound. The objective will be two-fold. One, validate the numbers Jonathan has provided and Two, look for any issues which might reduce the value of the business or highlight systemic issues or regulatory issues which may result in the loss of the broking licence or result in a loss of many customers.

Ro has been getting on a plane once a month to visit the offices of Atkins Robertson and speak with the GMs of the various teams. The regular travel meant accumulating frequent flyer points and gradually moving to the front of the plane. Over the last two years Ro’s frequent flyer status moved quickly from Bronze to Silver to Gold. Gold allowed him free access to the airline’s business lounge away from other flyers.

The office visit is an opportunity to get a pulse check on how the business is going. He enjoys the opportunity to speak with the Executive General Manager, Saul Smith, who runs the office but delegates virtually everything to the GMs. Saul used to be the contract manager at Masons business, the role Ro now holds. The founder, CEO and major shareholder of Atkins Robertson, Ollie Baden, got along extremely well with the now EGM. Ollie and Saul acquainted themselves over frequent alcoholic binge sessions. It became Ollie’s way to find out what the strategic thinking was at Mason Thompson. Saul had a great understanding of the operational aspects of the business. After 2 years, Ollie thought it better that Saul ran the Atkins business. Having Saul at Atkins meant Ollie could be sure the operations were run smoothly and effectively, albeit on a limited budget. Knowing that Saul was not going to divulge much information, Ro spent most of the time with Saul’s minions, the GMs and the Heads of teams. The General Managers at Atkins Robertson looked after the technology network, the systems and servers to make sure they were always available. Ro followed the simple acronym, RASS to supervise that part of the business and ensure it was operating satisfactorily. RASS, reliable, available, scaleable and secure covers the integral functions of this part of the business. There were several SLAs, service levels or benchmarks which Atkins Robertson had to meet in this area, but understanding them from a qualitative viewpoint was Ro’s focus was visiting.

The GM of Software Development, John Ruth, responsible for building and maintaining the platform, mostly the website and its features, was a bit more prickly. He new he was clever, he was at the forefront of development frameworks and concepts and stayed current with the cutting edge trends in the industry. Unfortunately, the ability for his team to develop in that sphere proved difficult given budget limitations, meaning recruiting the best in the business was impossible. It really meant he was always on the lookout for the next opportunity.

The remaining two GMs looked after the trading operations of the business - referred to as front office and back offie. Essentially these were the call centre and the processing operations. The lack of investment in the technology platform meant that these operations were more labour intensive than they probably should be but they operated within the SLAs in the contract. Again, Ro’s focus whilst visiting the offices of Atkins Robertson and visiting these teams specifically, was to monitor the quality of the operations. This meant listening to customer calls, speaking with the team on the floor to get a feel for morale and a sense of customer feedback. This would be used to validate the reports from the EGM about customer satisfaction. Ro would also speak to the staff from processing operations to get an appreciation of turnaround times, what was working well, what needed to be addressed, how many and more importantly what types of errors were being made and whether this was systemic, meaning, were these errors made repeatedly? He would use these discussions to validate the compliance reports and processing SLAs. To ensure the staff were open and forthcoming, Ro would invite them to breakfasts at a cafe on the beach nearby to the city. Lunches with Heads of would provide ‘off the record’ discussions and Ro would have to be forthcoming about plans from the Mason Thompson side as a quid pro quo. After work dinner and drinks were always popular. Many of the staff would free up the Thursday night, when Ro was due to visit, to go out for a team dinner and hit the pubs and clubs - usually ending at around 3am. Its always amazing how much people open up after a few drinks.

The Friday morning was for greasy food and laughs about the night before. Ro had become good friends with many of the people in the office. The Friday afternoon was spent recovering on the plane home and heading straight home to bed.