Human Resources/Marketing Commentary on overall Group results 40
Peter Hall Managing Director Human Resources/Marketing Human Resources/Marketing Get There. Together. Our People. Our Brand. <strong>FirstCaribbean</strong> is five years old this year. Built on the heritage platforms of two international banks, our brand continues to be a formidable part of the financial landscape in most of our current footprint. Even where our market share is lower than the competition, our brand is like our organisation’s value acronym CRICKET. It’s a long game and everybody knows we are in it. Our financial performance continues to be a league table leader against any measure and our profits this year hit over US$200 million. At the core of this has been the team at <strong>FirstCaribbean</strong> which has displayed a continuing commitment and capacity for change and challenge. Supported by a continued focus on our leadership development activities, our basic banking sales, credit and risk training agendas, we are slowly building a capability that is already differentiating us in the market. This differentiation was given a further dimension this year with the first phase implementation of our customer experience standards, which are about giving life and meaning in a universal and consistent way to what our customer experience will feel like. Integrating this with a focus on recruitment, critical process re-engineering and measurement is creating a single momentum and connectivity between our employee experience and our customer experience. Operating as we do in a fierce market with competition for scarce people resources and business, our brand continues to be well positioned and is market leading in terms of the employee proposition. Our organisation’s change agenda, which witnessed numerous developments in our technology platform environment and upgrades in our Cards, Treasury and Wealth businesses, have all been successfully delivered by teams making significant contributions and demonstrating commitment and loyalty of which we are truly proud. To our Curaçao, Cards, Change Management, Operations and Technology teams we owe this year a special thank you. Our union partnership this year has been tested and found to be capable and innovative. Indeed we have leveraged this year in a developmental way the partnership principles to enable successful closure to our collective agreement arrangements in the <strong>Bahamas</strong>, where our first five-year settlement has been achieved. We recognise that we exercised a different level of engagement and note the role of the leaders in the union partnership in this process. Our presence in the market was further felt this year through the release of our Universal “jingle”, which won our agency an award. “<strong>FirstCaribbean</strong>. Get There. Together.” is now a “hum” in the market. Our Wealth Management team was also this year supported by fresh collateral that is energising our team and impacting our clients. Despite challenges associated with technology changes, our customer service ratings continue to hold their own in the market and will over the next three quarters show demonstrable positive change. Our Internet platform continues to grow as a channel of choice, and upgrades in the coming year will further enhance this as a preferred service domain. With the added Internet channel for our Curaçao business, we are truly the No. 1 business in the region for basic online banking services. Our communication and public relations presence internally and externally witnessed a number of firsts this year, including our campaign which proudly shared the numerous awards achieved by the <strong>Bank</strong> from the financial services community. <strong>FirstCaribbean</strong> Unsung Heroes flagship recognition and social responsibility commitment, unearthed more treasures this year. These are being shared across the Caribbean. We approach the new financial year with continued focus for growth, but also with caution, noting that economic conditions in the US market have changed. This will require continued focus on leadership excellence, precise marketing execution and a careful attention to costs. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the team leaders, who continue to help us make things happen. They are Beatrix Carrington, David Small, Debra Johnson, Neil Brennan, Jacqueline Floro-Forde, Vivian Hinds, Kerry Higgs, Henry Reid, Geoffrey King, Monique Straughan, Dawne Williams, Siobhan Lloyd and Carolyn Lewis. 41