ARISTOCRAT INTERVIEW
Forward Focus
A
Aristocrat has emerged as a leaner, hungrier beast under new CEO Jamie Odell. Casino International sat down with Warren Jowett, MD,
EMEA, Asia-Pacific and Japan and Daniel Lindsay, General Manager,
Europe, to find out what the new management set-up really means for the company…
ristocrat has re-set its goals with an eye very firmly on the customer. Warren Jowett and Daniel Lindsay explained to Casino International what this rediscovered focus really means for those
customers.
Casino International: What is your role with
Aristocrat, Warren?
Warren Jowett: For the last eight years I’ve looked
after Australia, Asia-Pacific and Japan. We had a new CEO, Jamie Odell, join the organisation in January 2009 and he reviewed the organisational structure and has put a new management team in place. He split the global company into three jurisdictions: the Americas, Australia and New Zealand, and I have responsibility for what we describe as ‘Rest of World’.
CI: What were the immediate implications of the change in management structure?
WJ: The reason why there was a change is that we
hadn’t performed as a company over the last couple of years. The board of directors and the chairman believed that we needed someone with a different skill set into the organisation and they searched for four months, internally and externally. Over the course of his first five months following his appointment,
Jamie then reviewed the capability of the management team and made a number of changes, putting a new executive leadership team in place, which was announced in July 2009. Part and parcel of that was developing a new strategy for the next five years.
CI: The impression we got when speaking
to Aristocrat in Vegas at G2E 2009 was one of a company shifting back to basics, going back to simply making good games that people want to play. What is the shift in the company’s focus that has followed the management
32 MAY 2010
restructure?
WJ: When Jamie came on board, we worked as a management team to develop a strategy to turn around the performance of the company. Our strategy is built on four clear themes that reflect the changes we will be making and include putting players and customers at the centre of everything we do; delivering the best games and systems on a market-by-market basis; taking a disciplined approach to the markets and segments in which we compete; and ensuring we remain a world-class organisation with the capabilities and culture to support our turnaround plans.
CI: As a company, Aristocrat made some significant acquisitions in recent years: PokerTek, Electroncek, ACE Interactive… Under the new structure, are those relationships intact?
WJ: No. The company’s decided to focus on our
core business, and we announced late last year that we would be maintaining a focus on the distribution of Electroncek, but would be moving closer to our core business of games and systems. Whilst Aristocrat remains a minority shareholder in PokerTek, they now handle their own distribution. We found that they had significant opportunities for us but with the global economic change, we thought it best to move away from that distraction and focus on the things that are going to drive our success over the next five years. We are also maintaining our ownership of ACE Interactive and are excited about the potential of their server-based gaming products. Great games, great technology, good staff with the right attitude… those things will be our focus.
Daniel Lindsay: We have over 40 compliant jurisdictions in Europe and but we can’t do all of those justice. The current market conditions do not support being in all of those 42 jurisdictions. So we’re reviewing them, and the result of that will be a focus on a smaller number of regions jurisdictions which will get the majority of our focus and attention, because they will produce better business
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