p16 Columnist may15 12/5/09 16:51 Page 16
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ttglive.com
Jill Gardner Hays Travel
“So what went wrong at
Freedom Direct? The basics:
not ensuring the back office
and controls were right”
O
nce an accountant, always an Following a failure of such magnitude, the
accountant. That is why I importance of trade bodies to outline what
have never lost sight of the needs to be done to ensure clients travel or
importance of making sure the receive a refund, and where to go to get this,
basics are right in our business before we is essential.
go off and do anything else – even though Unfortunately, the uncertainty that our
my “bean counting” days are gone. industry has over what constitutes a package
This is why the reason for the demise of has left some clients of Freedom Direct
Freedom Direct Holidays came as such a vulnerable. Yet with Freedom having been
huge surprise to me and, I’m sure, to the registered with both Abta and Atol, this was
rest of the travel industry. not the fault of the clients.
Award-winning, profitable, dynamic, The sooner this issue is resolved the better,
successful – all accurate words used to and then at least everyone will be singing from
describe the business. And all of those the same hymn sheet.
things it was. So what went wrong? The other lesson I’ve taken from my involve-
The basics went wrong: losing sight ment in the aftermath of helping former
of making sure all the back office and Freedom Direct clients has been the strength
controls were right, which is the of our relationships with our suppliers.
foundation all businesses need to be At times like these, agents and
able to operate, succeed and grow. operators need to work together
The need to ensure that accounting to make sure we provide the
is timely, accurate and meaningful in a best we can for our clients.
business is key to success. Nearly all operators have
Without it you cannot operate or been fantastic in working with
survive. I am frequently amazed so many us to do this. In times of
businesses run blind, with no monthly adversity you learn who your
management accounts, no monthly balance friends are and in most cases we will have
sheet reconciliations and no accurate an even stronger working relationship going
management information. forward.
Learn a lesson from the failure of Freedom There are lessons for us all to learn in the
Direct – no matter what the size of your event of a failure, and as long as we change to
business, these are the essentials without take into account any shortfalls, we stand a
which you will fail. better chance of survival at times like these.
Another eye-opener for us in the Freedom
Direct case was the confusion that surrounds Jill Gardner is commercial director at
clients’ protection in the event of a failure. Hays Travel
16 15.05.2009
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