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Keynote Speaker: Liz Sherry, General Manager, Brecon Carreg

Panellists: Rob Warlow, Business Loan Services, Dr Kath Ringwald, and Gary Packham, University of Glamorgan.

As the leading Welsh water company in the UK, Brecon Carreg were the perfect company to head the discussion on Finding the Leaks for Real Seminars. Delegates flooded in (excuse the pun) to hear about Liz Sherry’s experiences of managing a well known business through the biggest re-structure the company had ever experienced. Liz’s insightful presentation was then followed by one of the liveliest discussions to date about the ups and downs of re-structure and risk management.

Without a doubt, the catalyst for Brecon Carreg’s re-structure was the move of its head office from Hemel Hempstead.  The company had been in existence since 1973 and now employs 30 full-time staff with an annual turnover of £6m. For nearly 40 years the company had grown and produced bottled water from two locations. One being production in a small remote area of rural Carmarthenshire called Trap and the management sat just north of London. Running the two offices was an unnecessary cost to the business, so in 2006, Brecon Carreg shut down its London offices, amalgamated the operations and management at Trap. This was the first plug in the financial wastage for the business which began the focus on streamlining processes and better efficiency.

According to Liz, however, this move was not without its challenges. Despite having excellent long term benefits, the move was a very expensive process. Liz also explained that because the company had never experienced a change so big, there was a severe lack of knowledge and confidence amongst management, which in turn, transmitted to the rest of the staff.

So, how did Liz manage this re-structure successfully?  The most important step, Liz explained, was to use the advice of an external HR consultancy to review the relationship and processes when dealing with the business change and carried out a diagnostics review on the business to highlight those leaks and improvements that can be made. She recognised that her knowledge in certain areas and other internal resources was limited, therefore it was essential that ‘experts’ not connected with Brecon Carreg where used to get the most out of the exercise.

With this, Brecon Carreg made several changes to the business, including a review of the staff handbook, an update of contracts, and a change to the organisational structure of the company. The review also identified that need for tighter credit control and a more effective sales process. It highlighted the lack of measurable consumer marketing the brand was doing, so they enlisted the help of Maccann Erickson who ran a successful outdoor advertising campaign that pushed Brecon Carreg to be Wales’s preferred brand of bottled water on brand recognition.

As a result of these changes, Liz explained that the company experienced greater productivity, a happier team, and eventually saved money. According to Liz ‘It’s not what you know, it’s what you do about what you know that makes a difference’

Brecon Carreg have come on leaps and bounds since the re-structure by Liz Sherry, and it shows. They have experienced retail success with a marked increase in units sold to supermarkets. Tesco as and example they now have prime positioning and a 30% increase in listings.

Other improvements that came out of the whole re-structure and cost reduction exercises have been those which have had an environmental impact. Achieving the Green Dragon award for environmental waste reduction wasn’t about ticking boxes, it actually saved the business a lot of money, aided its marketability within a promotion of their target market (students) and boosted team moral.

Brecon Carreg now encourages all of their staff to suggest ways of increasing efficiency, creating less waste and saving money. They have eco drives internally and reward staff for suggestions. The result has seen 60% less glue being used on bottle labels, over 1 tonne less paper waste and 11 tonne reduction in materials. This all directly affects the bottom line of the business and is perhaps the biggest leak.

Liz acknowledges that there are still some obstacles that Brecon Carreg face, such as geographical location, pricing of raw materials going up due to oil prices and other logistical concerns, but she truly believes that with a motivated workforce and the correct processes in place, Brecon Carreg can tackle any leaks in a business!

Snippets from Q&A

Panellists: Rob Warlow, Business Loan Services, Dr Kath Ringwald, and Gary Packham, University of Glamorgan.

“What Happens when you get to a point where you can’t improve any more?”

Panel Response

Liz: We continuously look at external factors to our business that can cause changes, problems or improvements

Rob: Whist running banks in Africa I used to hunt out the Mickey Mouse rules. Where I would as staff and customers what stops you from doing what your meant too and either remove that obstacle or change it.

“Do you physically reward for good ideas?”

Liz: Yes we do, but rewards doesn’t have to be financial or physical it can be recognition also

Kath: You have to be careful that you are rewarding for the right reasons and that the suggestions or staff contribution is for the right reasons also. Management of the incentive programme has to be handled fairly from the office cleaner to senior management.

“How painful is it to go through a re-structure personally [for the MD/Management]?

Liz: I was scared about talking about the changes as I didn’t have the knowledge to hand or the confidence. Redundancies are always difficult but I had to make sure I had all the information first before making any rash decisions. Also be objective, make sure it’s right for the business.

Rob: Say what you do and do what you say

Kath:  There is a quote from Machiavelli which is still relevant “There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.

‘Risk is embedded in every opportunity a business faces. And poor risk management can result in large financial costs, or even failure. Risk points can emerge anywhere: small scale project delays, the misguided actions of an employee, or a fire in an inventory warehouse. ‘

Find out how to avoid major leaks in our next seminar, with Liz Sherry of Brecon Carreg, and our panel of experts!

Read Full Article here

You can buy your tickets here

Apologies for any inconvenience caused

The Real Seminars Team

A summary of figures is available  here

How do you think the budget will affect businesses in Wales?? Let us know what you think, by posting on our blog below!

On May 23rd, Social media industry leaders from the four corners of Britain will be assembled in Cardiff, 2011 to facilitate small clustered seminar groups on the topics that will have the highest impact on business growth and development in South Wales and beyond. An estimated audience of 200 businesses will be in attendance on the day, making this by far the biggest, most exclusive, high-profile social media event ever hosted in Wales.

Organised by Allan Blair-Beaton, of Social B2B, What’s Next, 2011 will teach businesses to use existing platforms in a more innovative fashion to increase on-line profile and traffic to their perspective websites, via small group seminars hosted by recognised industry leaders within their respective fields of twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and social media monitoring tools

For more information and tickets, please click here

Keynote Speaker: Matt O’Sullivan, Customer Service Manager, John Lewis

Panel: Kevin Copp, Institute of Customer Service, Helena Williams, Acorn Recruitment, and Hugh Hilary, Park Plaza.

An evening which covered every aspect of customer service, ‘Knowing your Customer’ was a great success. Matt O’Sullivan’s presentation gave an excellent insight in to the world of John Lewis, which left everyone with new ideas about how to give great service. The panel discussion fuelled exciting debate about what it means to really know your customers.

Matt began the evening by sharing the background of John Lewis with delegates. He told us that John Lewis was originally an experiment, set up by John Spendan Lewis, in which the founder wanted to challenge the role of capitalism, and invite employees to be partners in the John Lewis company as opposed to ‘staff’.

John Lewis was about ‘substituting partnership for exploiting employment’

This structure has worked well within John Lewis, as confirmed by a video clip played by Matt which was shown at last year’s John Lewis AGM conference. The partners feel valued, as they are classed as being part of the business, and in turn, John Lewis has a ‘committed and passionate workforce, who understand and listen to their customers’.

Matt then went on to explain the partnership scheme as a three way continuous loop which involved the partner, the customer, and profit. All of which, in turn affect each other. According to John Lewis, service is their priority, and it is all about developing trust between the customer and the partner.

Although John Lewis are at the top of their game in the customer services industry, Matt explained that the high scores, aren’t consistent across the board, and it is the company’s goal to get every store up to the same standard, rather than having some at 95% and others at just 65% John Lewis often have mystery shoppers, and this is one of the ways that they use to improve service.

Complaints are an important thing to John Lewis, with Matt describing feedback as ‘a gift’. Matt explained that for one complaint, there are thirty of the same, so that to hear feedback is a great step in improving customer service. It is of course the way you deal with a complaint that is the important part. John Lewis prefer to take a personal approach, and treat each customer individually. This, it seems has worked incredibly well with John Lewis, as they have been rated the top company in the UK for customer satisfaction.

John Lewis’s reputation is down to its partners. The company prides itself on hiring the people with the best attitude, and it is because of this attitude that John Lewis partners can identify with and cater for their customer’s needs. John Lewis is a partner run company which definitely knows its customers.

In summary, we learnt from John Lewis that customers react to the touch points of your business, the products, service, and the staff. John Lewis strongly focus on their partners (i.e. staff), and with their ethos being never knowingly undersold, John Lewis rely on customer service to ensure the success of the business.

Assessing your customers, listening to feedback, and responding to complaints positively will enable you to have a better understanding of who your customers are, and how to deliver to them successfully.

You can hear the secrets to John Lewis’ success from one of Cardiff’s customer service managers, Matt O’Sullivan, who will be speaking at the next seminar, Knowing your Customers, on the 24th February

To read the rest of the report summary by the ICS, click here.

It is true that ‘customers are becoming increasingly demanding and have a huge amount of information available to them at the click of a mouse’. Customers expect so much more these days, and its more important now more than ever to have a clear strategy when it comes to service.

In these testing times, John Lewis continues to maintain its excellent standards in customer service, and with the company’s sales figures showing no signs of falling, it only makes sense to have Matt O’Sullivan as our key note speaker at the next Real Seminar. He will be sharing the secrets one of the most successful customer relations teams in the UK, and as the customer services manager for John Lewis, Matt will be sharing his own expert knowledge of customer service procedures and policies.

He will also be accompanied by an excellent panel, who will give an extra insight in to the world of customer service.

Click here for more information

According to Evey:

“ buying decisions are not based on price, but by the feeling that the customer gets when they do business with us”

So is customer service really that important? With the focus of the next seminar being on customer services, we want your opinion on its importance. Is good customer service crucial to the development and growth of a company?

Let us know what you think!

Full Article here