January 3, 2014
CEO Newsletter
Te3am,
As we close out Y13 I thought it appropriate to reflect on a few of its major milestones. Together we achieved some big wins and overcame some huge challenges. Going global in the UK with The Lindley Group, now known as Centerplate UK, is top of the list. We merged best practices and our shared knowledge has enabled us to grow and expand our markets in the UK and will lead to more in the future. The redefining of our branding of making it better to be there will further drive forward our advantage.
Clearly too many to individually mention, a few of our most notable renewals were unanimously winning the hotly contested renewal of the Colorado Convention Center, the renewal of the Miami Beach Convention Center after a 2-year battle, and the renewal of ACC Liverpool in a tender process. Overall in Y13 we attained a renewed rate of 99% of revenues – our best performance in decades. This is the best way to demonstrate that, once we have shown our capabilities, our clients are as “All-In” as we are. We have also already made great headway in the early renewal of many contracts coming up in the next 3 years. This underscores that while our competitors continue to spin on their own merry-go-round of winning and losing new accounts they cannot win any of our meaningful core business. The biggest disappointment for me in the past year has been that they continue to buy business and not win business by better programs and better strategy. Judging from recent developments this does not seem likely to correct itself anytime soon but eventually it will and when it does Centerplate will be better placed than ever to drive unprecedented growth.
Centerplate was confronted with the challenge of an unjustified union dispute in California. Our local and legal teams did an amazing job to hold things together and there was not a single customer complaint. This is just another of many examples why I can categorically state that Centerplate simply is the best in Event Hospitality.
We also spent a considerable amount of time reviewing and enhancing our Support Center structure to provide a solid foundation for our enterprise. We have never before had the knowledge, strength and depth in each of the departments now in place, ready and able to support our future growth.
We exit the year knowing that collectively no enterprise is growing their top line faster than we are and none match our quality, service and net promoter fan scores. We win on every element important to our clients and we should always communicate this. The better news is that we are already working on strategies that will strengthen us not just in the coming year but for years to come.
Looking ahead to our future development, I am happy to announce that Jeff Tandberg is being promoted to a dual role. Jeff will initially take on a regional role based out of our Warner Bros. operation reporting directly to Adam Elliott and will also be the executive-in-charge of our continental Europe expansion outside of the UK which we will announce shortly. Please join me in congratulating Jeff on his new role and wishing him much success.
Let’s all focus and deliver on our individual goals and objectives and our combined strength will propel us ahead. Here’s to another great year in 2014 and making it better to be there for our 115 million plus guests!
Onwards!
