Writes Lynne Harrison, Group CFO
While we may all ‘love it when a plan comes together’ the simple truth is that you learn more when things don’t go as planned than when they do.
That pretty much sums up the past 6 months – we have had many opportunities to learn!
After the flurry of activity during the period January to June – setting up in ONT, DTW, CAE and LAS – although we knew there were certain goals that we had to achieve, most notably winning the RFPs being issued so we retained both MSP and MCO, the “plan” for the period July – December was to grow our existing sites, and give Operations an opportunity to build resilience. Meanwhile, our Business Development team would focus on extending the sales pipeline and doing the preparatory work necessary to win new sites to be onboarded during early 2024.
Unfortunately, before we even started the new financial year in July, we received the news that Nashville was insourcing our work – sadly leading to our laying off 10 staff. It was scant comfort to be assured that this was, in no way, a criticism of the services we had consistently delivered to that airport during the preceding 12 years, simply a change of policy by the IT department.
We have also had some good news, retaining MSP, extending RNO and expanding CLT, while we have bid two RFPs for MCO, either one of which can be used to retain that site. We are also part of one of the successful teams to win an important contract with LAX and so we can look forward to extra work there. But, in line with the well-worn ‘hurry up and wait’ scenario (we are all so well-used to by now), most of the anticipated expansions have also been slow to move from plan to reality – hopefully we will see some movement at a number of sites early in the new year.
The Business Development team has been busy attending a number of events for the first time, mainly to get us exposure to other airports and as part of extending the sales pipeline. This includes some of the AAAE chapter conferences – the American Association of Airport Executives is regionalized into ‘chapters’ and has events for the North East, South East, North West and South West in addition to their National Airport Conference and their Annual Conference. Add to that Smart Airports in Edmonton plus the usual ACI-NA events and this research should give us a more definitive list of what is worth attending in future years – and what isn’t.
As I referred to in July, the ACI-NA Annual Conference and Exhibition was held in Long Beach, CA at the end of September/beginning of October this year – under a new format. Considering we had been in Long Beach as recently as 2015 it was surprising that the conference returned there so soon – usually there is at least a 12-year gap. Although the ServiceTec team largely managed to achieve what we set out to do, the new format made the event as challenging as we anticipated, with the layout of the venue and the meeting rooms allocated to the event a contributory factor. In fairness to ACI-NA, they did ask for frank and honest feedback, which they certainly got from us!
While in the vicinity, David and I took the opportunity to represent the ServiceTec Board and make site visits to ONT and LAX, then extend our hospitality to the staff on the respective evenings. We had a pleasant dinner with most of the ONT team followed by a more sporting evening at Top Golf with the local-to-LA team members – happily for non-golfers, Top Golf has introduced an Angry Birds version of their game, which simply requires you to hit the ball, making for a fun evening even for those of us who don’t play/are absolutely terrible at golf.
In early December, the North American management team will be getting together in Northern Virginia, for the annual update meeting. For many of the attendees, this will be their first update meeting – and their first opportunity to meet many of their peers in person. We’ve recently found ourselves emphasizing our culture of teamwork, collaboration and supporting one another when talking to potential clients – not only does it continue to be a major strength of the organization, regardless of whether it is done in person or by call/Chat/Meet/text/all of the above – but it is surprising how few companies even see it as important, let alone do it!
Looking forward to 2024, we are hoping to add more airports in Canada – although we will have to win a number of competitive RFP processes to achieve this – and to add at least two more airport sites in the US – all before the end of June 2024 in order to meet our strategic objectives.
We can do this – it wouldn’t be fun if it wasn’t a challenge!!!
Happy Holidays!
Lynne Harrison
Group CFO
