An Interview with Ray Piggott

Ray Piggott (LLB, CEng, Fiet) has enjoyed a highly successful managerial career in a number of prominent international businesses within the telecommunications, computer and engineering industries. Ray has worked for British companies as well as foreign owned corporations, in a number of different countries around the world. This breadth of experience led Ray to write a book that the Bizenko founders consider to be an essential read for anyone graduating from the British Education system. It has taken us a long time to learn some of the lessons Ray spells out in his book. For those with ambitions to progress in any career, this book is invaluable (�We could be contenders� ISBN � 1-85252-526-6 Published by management books).

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Bizenko: Ray, thank you for your time. Please can you start by describing the greatest challenge that you have faced in your career?

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Ray Piggott:

I suppose taking three small companies (collectively with a turnover of about £20m) and one large company (8 or 9 times larger) and merging them into one corporate entity.

Each company had a long history, each had loyalties from their respective workforce and each had some level of financial problem. None of them were particularly disposed to merge, or even to change name! Any new development was a step into the unknown as far as the respective employees were concerned. I had to persuade them of the future and give them belief and hope.

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Bizenko: How, in particular, did you achieve this?

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Ray Piggott:

I had to think what needed to be done. I had to identify what were the fears and motivations for each group facing this merger. For example, I realised the need to come up with a new name that allowed people to �save face�. In other words a name that didn�t suggest any one of the original companies had any advantage or any disadvantage. We needed to find new headquarter offices so that people weren�t forced to move into the premises of another company. In order to motivate people about the future, it�s important to understand their motivations on this human level.

In fact, when the larger company was merged into the collection of three smaller companies, we faced this again, trying to find a name that promised a new future, but which didn�t neglect the historical goodwill, prestige and recognition of the legacy companies. Thus CrayCom and Case became Cray communications.

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Bizenko: What, in your opinion, makes a good manager?

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Ray Piggott:

I think someone who can be emotionally neutral. I don�t think that you can afford to become emotionally connected to the people you manage. Of course, you have to be involved in the company, the product and so on; but when you become a manager you must accept new objectives. Everyone is paid to do what the company wants. You are not paid to do what you might want to do. So a manager must be friendly, but not friends. Unavoidably, at some point a manager might have to �spill some blood� amongst colleagues, and as an American Soldier once said to me, �if you aren�t prepared to spill some blood (as a manager) you shouldn�t be in the job�.

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Bizenko: What attributes or attitudes have typified your best customers?

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Ray Piggott:

Hmmm, this is hard to encompass into a short answer. The best customer tells you what they need you to do for them. They are clear about what they want, and they appreciate and respond to your honest reaction. Also, they appreciate objectivity. For example, if they ask for something, explain why they need it, and allow you to respond in a frank manner then that�s a good relationship. Their requests might not be practical, but if you are able to explain your position, and explain the implications of their requests (such as additional costs to accommodate their specifications) then you can both get on.

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Bizenko: Describe the best methods for finding such a customer?

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Ray Piggott:

The honesty implied by the previous answer. Part of being successful in your job is understanding your own company. In order to be successful in your role, you need to �buy� into your employer, and the way your employer acts, how they plan etc. If you know how the company thinks and acts, then you can explain ideas to a customer correctly. There�s nothing more likely to irritate a customer than when a flustered employee can�t explain something to a customer.

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Bizenko: Describe what you would consider to be the vital components of a �perfect� business deal?

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Ray Piggott:

Again, it�s important to have honesty between all parties. I recall one company I worked for had a policy of not discriminating between customers according to their size. Everyone was treated equally. The only price reductions were linked to sales volume. Big companies got no preferential favours simply because of their size. This makes things simple, and any customers who talk to each other aren�t going to uncover discrepancies. Your sales force know the deal, your customers know the deal. There�s no room for upsets.

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Bizenko: What questions have you learned to ask in order to uncover problems or objections in any business deal?

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Ray Piggott:

I try to think about what might happen (good or bad) and work to make those things happen or not happen. I was in a �pitch� situation recently and the customer was making lots of favourable noises so I asked:

�What happens now? You say you like our product, but what has to happen to make this sale, does anyone else need to approve this conversation?�

Up to that point, the guy had said everything we wanted to hear, but it was just too good to be true.

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You need to think about all of the people who can influence the decision. Who else influences the process by which the decision is made? Check them all out, and explore all the factors of any decision making process. For example, I once sold products (via an intermediary) into the NHS. I anticipated that the Medical Research Council would have an influence over any decision to buy the sort of product we were selling. I made sure I knew how that council perceived the purchase process. In fact, I learnt through this conversation that whilst our products were respected, the intermediary through whom we supplied the NHS was not popular. I had to reassure myself that this unpopularity didn�t extend to us if we were to sell directly.

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Bizenko: What practices or habits of customers or suppliers have impressed you when doing business with other companies?

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Ray Piggott:

Well I�ve already spoken about how highly I regard honesty. I can certainly identify habits that have not impressed me. The main one being that I think the British are not very ambitious or adventurous, and that they are possibly too conservative in business.

In my observation, American buyers are much more willing to give a small company a chance (to be a supplier). I think the British are too concerned about the status quo and hierarchy. If you make an approach to a CEO in America you�ll get some form of direct communication response, but that�s unlikely in the UK.

My experience is in high technology, young, fast moving companies. The people and the mentality in such organisations in the UK is that they tend to become too comfortable, too conservative too soon. As an example, when I was CEO of CrayCom, we had one supplier who was in fact a two-man band working out of a spare bedroom. Their product was built into our product. We needed to protect our position, such that we retained or assumed protection and rights should they ever experience difficulty, but it was arranged such that we could both succeed.

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Another example of this British attitude hindering success, I once read an article in the Economist (March 12th 2009) in which I learnt that between 1996 and 2004, there were an average of 550,000 new start-up businesses in the USA, every MONTH. That�s a phenomenally adventurous attitude to have. I don�t think we have that same attitude in UK.

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(Editor�s note � the article also suggests that one reason entrepreneurs flourish in USA is that the consumers are �venturesome�, which means that they are willing to try new products, educate themselves how to use new things, and even prepared to spend savings to buy new, and presumably unpopular products).

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Bizenko: Which marketing campaign made the best impression on you and why?

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Ray Piggott:

Probably a campaign that never ran (for reasons I can�t recall). Data General were a mini-computer company at a time when the industry giant IBM sought to diversify away from Mainframe computers and expand into the mini-computer market sector. Mini-computers were beginning to challenge mainframe computers, and Data General�s attitude was to challenge the established order. The move by IBM was reported at the time as:

�IBM�s entry into the mini-computer sector would legitimise the sector�.

The Data General advert said:

�The bastards say welcome!�

I liked the advertisement, as it was cheeky. It reflected the way the company was run. At Data General, anything was possible as long as you made the �numbers�.

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Bizenko: Which marketing campaign made the worst impression on you and why?

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Ray Piggott:

Well I�d rather not name names, but one of the companies I once observed from relatively close quarters had a huge range of products. They had a fuller range of products than their competitors. Their marketing seemed to assume that all customers were virgin customers, and that they would therefore want everything in the range. That just wasn�t the case for everyone. I had huge respect for the brains within the company, but their marketing wasn�t coordinated. They lacked corporate discipline.

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Bizenko: What factors make a manufacturing process successful?

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Ray Piggott:

 I�d say it�s important to realise that Manufacturing isn�t �just a blue-collar� task. Japanese manufacturing is a by-word for reliability. I suggest this is because the Japanese manufacturing uses the application of science. Manufacturing needs to take raw design and turn it into a viable product (by which I mean the market has to want to buy it at a profitable level). This requires you to understand every stage of development. Because we Brits don�t treat manufacturing as a science, we diminish our reliability. Managers need to inspire the manufacturing process, and when they don�t do this we get the union problems we deserve.

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The following anecdote springs to mind. When Ford took over Jaguar, the incoming Ford CEO looked at the Jaguar production facilities and said that he�d never seen anything so old fashioned. There was a joke when I lived in the USA that if you were buying a Jaguar, you needed to buy two. You needed one to drive, and one to use as a source of spares. How had things been allowed to get to that state?

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 Bizenko: Please recount your experience of introducing new procedures or technologies into a business.

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Ray Piggott:

As staff director at ICL, I had responsibility for a new sales channel. We were to start selling our products to Third Parties (ie software houses). Previously we�d only ever sold products to the end user, and a large part of my challenge was to introduce this new channel without upsetting the established order (by which I mean the people in my own company who didn�t like change). My experience of working for US companies and in the United States was that they would never allow such politics to get in the way of any activity, but in UK huge amounts of effort had to go into communicating to our own people who might be offended or feel threatened by this new sales channel. As it happens, in the end, I had to walk away from it. I knew my limitations, and I knew my style wasn�t ever going to please their status quo.

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 Bizenko: What factors are crucial in a successful R&D Campaign?

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Ray Piggott:

I think this sort of activity thrives best in an exciting, stimulating environment. I don�t have any direct experience of R&D myself, but I�ve seen the demise of lots of industries because they haven�t got this right (for example motorcycle manufacture in UK). I can see that it�s important to identify and monitor (market) threats, and always understand them. I think it�s important to have a mechanism in each company that brings the marketplace into your plans. In other words, allow every person involved in R&D to understand how market conditions affect their work. Does everyone know the what, why, when, how of making your product viable? Do your colleagues know exactly what the customers want? If you don�t have this feedback into your R&D you can wake up to find that someone has �eaten your lunch�!

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 Bizenko: Which businessperson or event has had a positive effect on your attitude towards business and why?

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Ray Piggott:

Ed DeCastro (the founder of Data General). Ed built his business from a start-up in a pizza parlour to be a $2 billion corporation. He laid down a corporate philosophy that facilitated this growth, which lots of people bought into. I certainly enjoyed the philosophy and found working there to be very stimulating. Ed DeCastro was ruthless in pursuit of success, but not paternalistic, and this made the company very successful, and created an environment that �worked�.

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Data General challenged the status quo and challenged it�s people. It offered employees no more than basic payment. There was no pension scheme, although there was an excellent death in service benefit. Data General was suspicious of paternalistic activities, and the products and pricing reflected this. But the company grew very well as a result. Possibly the company should have changed a bit more once it got to be large and successful (the company was eventually bought out).

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Bizenko: Describe events or personalities that have had a de-motivating effect on your attitude towards business.

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Ray Piggott:

When workers lose their jobs after decision makers, those with responsibility (managers!) have made a hash of things. I don�t like companies that don�t exploit talent, or companies that allow a (private member) �club� atmosphere

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 Bizenko: What is the one thing you wished you had known when you started your career?

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Ray Piggott:

I wished that I had known the way a business should be run. I only learned this by going abroad in my mid-thirties. It was a culture shock.

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Bizenko: What has been the most valuable advice you�ve ever been given?

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Ray Piggott:

Don�t confuse activity with capability, or energy with achievement.

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Bizenko: What is the most useful advice that you can pass on?:

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Ray Piggott:

Don�t let someone else or something else determine your progress. You must determine your own value.

Also to think what might happen, and then to work to ensure it either will happen or won�t happen (depending on your objective!)

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Bizenko: What do you consider to be the biggest opportunity in business today?

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Ray Piggott:

I don�t think you necessarily need to look at new things, I think there�s plenty of room to improve current practices. Obviously the Internet is a huge possibility. Bring something new or do something better.

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 Bizenko: If you were to start all over again, what would be your dream job?

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Ray Piggott:

Managing the NHS. I have huge admiration for the organisation, but I fear that the staff are not well served. I sense that the medical staff could be better motivated, and I think the whole thing needs managing away from the Government.

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 Bizenko: A huge thank you to Ray Piggott for his time and comments. Thank you.

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Bizenko has been created by Nick Palmer to bridge the gap between education and employment. Basically, Nick was miffed when he graduated and didn't understand the commercial world, and once he'd learned a little bit more, he was miffed that the people he needed to employ didn't understand the commercial world. On a hunch that there were lots of people who didn't understand the commercial world, he devised a solution that would save willing participants the cost and heartache Nick incurred to resolve the problem. We hope you enjoy the service.