Important to meet customers
John-Arne Haugerud.
(Photo: Nina Staff, VPS)
CEO John-Arne Haugerud wants to talk to both customers and employees before the long-term strategy for VPS comes up for review.
John-Arne Haugerud has been the CEO for just two weeks, but he already has definite plans for the next few months.
“The most important thing now is for me to get to know the whole of VPS – not only our employees, our skills, the projects currently underway and the products and services we deliver, but also our customers and what we do for them. This is what I will focus on, and I intend to get involved in the business right away”, explains John-Arne Haugerud.
– But surely you have done some homework in advance?
“Well, yes and no. I have been able to sit in on some meetings of the Oslo Børs VPS group management team. I have of course met the management team here at VPS, and I have read a great deal of documentation, but this is not at all the same as meeting and talking directly to our customers and employees. It is only by talking to people and asking ’what is this about, what does this mean’ that you get a real understanding of what is going on”.
Looking forward to meeting the customers
In order to learn as much as possible in the shortest possible time, John-Arne plans to hold management meetings and meetings with the business areas more frequently than usual over the next few months. Following this, John-Arne is planning to meet customers.
“I want to be well prepared before I meet our customers, and I do not want to just turn up and say ’Hello, I’m John-Arne’. I will want to know what they buy from us, whether they are satisfied, how they use our services and what is on their agenda, so that we can have a constructive dialogue from the very first meeting”.
John-Arne aims to be well on the way with customer meetings even before Christmas.
“I certainly want to meet many of our customers over the next few weeks. I am sure most customers will welcome the idea and be keen to get together. So you could say that employees and customers will be two very important activities for me over the coming weeks. I do of course talk to the management team every day, but it is not just their input that I need, but also input across a somewhat broader range".
Existing plans to continue
John-Arne Haugerud takes up his job at a time when many of the plans for 2012 are already in place, including marketing plans, product plans, budgets and projects.
“One of my tasks in the first months is to ensure that we will continue and deliver what is currently planned. It is not a good idea for a new CEO to come in and turn everything on its head and want everything done differently - things just do not work like that. As time goes on we will start the process of planning for 2013, with the strategic review process starting in the summer. I hope that by then I will have gathered enough input from customers and business partners, investors and issuers for me to contribute to decision making on our various areas of activities, including any adjustments and improvements that might be needed. This will involve internal activities such as organisational development and competence management in order to ensure that we provide reliable daily operations as well as delivering major projects such as the funds project and T2S. T2S represents a major strategic issue that will need decisions over the next 6-8 months".
Interviewer: Cathrine Asheim, VPS
