Verifone EMEA and the changing environment.

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OUBS TMA01                Mark O’Flynn (W3269765)

VERIFONE EMEA

AND THE

CHANGING ENVIRONMENT

To:                Rosamund Bell, CEO VeriFone EMEA

Author:        Mark O’Flynn, EMEA Sales Manager

Date:                June 18th 2003


CONTENTS

1 INTRODUCTION                                                3

2 VERIFONE ENVIRONMENTS                                4

        2.1 THE EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT                5

                2.1.1 Competition                                        6

                2.1.2 Suppliers                                        7

                2.1.3 Clients                                        8

                2.1.4 International Card Associations        8

        2.2 THE INTERNAL ENVIRONMENT                9

                2.2.1 Structure                                        9

                2.2.2 Culture                                        10

3 CRITICAL ANALYSIS & RECCOMENDATIONS        12

                3.1 Going to Market                                13

                3.2 Dealing with Competition                        14

                3.3 Supply Chain                                        14

                3.4 The Far Environment                        15

                3.5 Company Culture                                15

4 CONCLUSION                                                        16

5 REFERENCES                                                        17


  1. INTRODUCTION

Well over half of the twenty million credit & debit card payment terminals installed globally are VeriFone devices.

                                

At the height of the dot.com boom, Hewlett-Packard, anxious to diversify into the e-commerce arena, purchased the then profitable and dynamic global leader for $1.4 billion.  Three years later HP realized that VeriFone, by then losing $90m annually, along with skilled personnel and huge chunks of market share to competitors, had little to do with e-commerce or other core businesses.

Private equity fund GTCR picked VeriFone up for a mere $45 million and began immediately turning the company around, embarking on a mission to change the corporate structure and culture.  As part of the cohesive and dynamic management team pulled together by GTCR to manage business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), we are well on the way to completing the main objectives set:

  1. Rebuild this great brand;
  2. Manufacture highest quality products;
  3. Compete aggressively on price;
  4. IPO in 2 years time.

This report analyzes the ability of VeriFone EMEA to contribute to this strategy, with respect to the changing environment.  From my perspective as the recently appointed Sales Manager for Southern Europe & Africa, key issues to focus on are:

  • The constraints our partners, clients, competitors and internal stakeholders present;
  • How our internal culture and structure are organised, and their appropriateness to enable us to operate dynamically in parallel with the changing environment;
  • Suggested changes to procedures and structure to enable VeriFone professionals to succeed in their jobs.
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  1. VERIFONE ENVIRONMENTS

The key stakeholders and influencers (Block 1, Session 1, p.11) in VeriFone EMEA, and the environments, within which activities are carried out today, may be portrayed as follows:

Figure 1: VeriFone EMEA’s stakeholder environment


  1. THE EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT

The demarcation between our internal environment, over which we have full control, and our near environment, over which we have influence, is not always clear.  Increasingly common network arrangements between key suppliers, customers and even competitors contribute to this.

Example 1        Customer, Distributor or Supplier?

Our Spanish VIP (VeriFone International Partner), Necomplus, ...

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