Excellence in Execution
We are developing a fast-growing international business and are laying down the foundations for future growth. Our plan is for IPF to operate more effectively on a much larger scale in years to come. Our Excellence in Execution programme will help enable us to achieve these goals.
Our job as managers is to continually find ways to improve the quality, efficiency and effectiveness of our business. During this past year we have brought together a number of initiatives into a single programme called Excellence in Execution and committed resources to ensure it can be implemented successfully. The programme aims to achieve improvement in three ways.
Firstly we have created, and are now introducing, precisely defined and documented operating processes and procedures throughout our business which support and reflect our commitment to Treating Customers Fairly (‘TCF’). These will ensure that as we open in new territories or bring new people into the business, we deliver a consistently good service to customers and agents.
Secondly, we are devolving the management of our business to local, branch level. This means we will tailor our sales, marketing and credit strategies according to the potential and performance of individual branches rather than at overall country level. We have successfully implemented this approach in Mexico and are now rolling it out into all our markets. We expect this to improve the profit performance of all branches and also narrow the range of performance across branches.
Thirdly, we know that the retention of agents and building their levels of experience is a major driver of profit and appreciate the agent is central to delivering a quality service to our customers. We therefore intend to improve our selection, guidance and performance management of agents in all markets during 2009.