Ross Walker, a former employee of Arum now at Oracle, always had a ‘second job’ when working at Arum, only his was a bit more interesting than most, as he is Pipe Major of one of the World’s top pipe bands called “Boghall and Bathgate Caledonia”. After quite a few near misses, last weekend Ross’s band won one of the 5 major events of the pipe band competing season, winning the Grade 1 category at the Cowal Highland Gathering where they beat the previous champions and the recently crowned World Champions in the process.

For those that don’t know, the Pipe Major and Drum Major of a Pipe Band are the two major forces in building a band and driving success, but it takes tremendous commitment from the whole band to reach Grade 1, never mind win events at that level, so well done Ross and the rest of the Band.

Here is a glimpse of their performance and here is some of the reaction to the win! Lets hope that they can carry this success forward into next year!

On 5th September two members of the Arum team will be running in the 10k Bank of Scotland “Great Scottish Run” in Glasgow. Andy Pritchard, Principal Consultant, is a comparative veteran of runs like this, having successfully completed events up to and including Marathon length in the past. It will be a first such run, however, for Neil McLean, one of our Lead Consultants, who claims to have been persuaded to take up this run by Andy ‘in a moment of weakness’. Neil seems to have done quite a bit of preparation nonetheless - he has recently been seen out pounding the streets during the week when away on various pieces of work and is hoping for a time under 60 minutes. Good luck to both of them!

I spent an interesting time a couple of nights ago at a GlobalScot event organised by Scottish Enterprise. Essentially it was a talk by John Stewart (Chairman of L&G, ex-CEO of NAB and the Woolwich) and discussion on the topic of Leadership. John is an impressive man with a good track record, so it is perhaps unsurprising that he was able to speak eloquently on the subject punctuating his views with personal examples. There was lots of good stuff and it was a very worthwhile evening, not least in reminding me (as MD of Arum) what I should be doing but sometimes omit to do in the pace of each day!

One thing that John has clearly done throughout his career is assess people on the two axes of Performance and Behaviour (he showed a classic ‘consultancy’ 2 x 2 quadrant diagram to illustrate this) - taking strong action to move people into the ideal quadrant or exit them from the organisation. It occurred to me that this maxim is a great, simple example of the objectives of a collections operations performance management process, particularly in an organisation where behaviours are key - for example in being compliant or achieving excellent customer service.

Just back in Scotland after yesterday evening’s Arum Credit and Collections Round Table event in London. It was another very good event, this time held at the private members Caledonian Club just off Marble Arch.

The timing of the event was very good with the recent budget and announcements on the future regulation wrt the FSA and BoE so there was lots to talk about. There were lots of very good contributions from all at the event, the discussions centring around the feature topics of the challenges facing the money advice sector (and what creditors can do to help), trends emerging in debtors populations, regulation and the likely effects of the budget on credit and collections – lots to get our teeth into.

Given the skills and experience of the Round Table attendees the debate was vigorous and the quality understandably high – people are clearly tackling current business challenges with real energy. It is always good to get to know people, so the dinner was also great with the drinks both well deserved and needed to cope with the heat in London! I am looking forward to the next event!

Last Friday our Principal Consultant, Peter Maguire, skilfully led us through our quarterly “All Hands” day. These events at the Edinburgh offices give an opportunity for all staff to get together face to face (and meet the new faces we haven’t encountered before), catch up on professional news as well as idle gossip, learn new skills, reaffirm company purpose and drive … and remind each other who still owes unpaid debts from the last time ;-)

In the early plenary sessions we were reminded how persuasive and articulate our colleagues can be, with lively presentations from:
* Angie and David on what write-off really means
* Neil on the vagaries of customer behaviour
* Nick on how to evangelise about web applications without losing your audience through too much geek-speak.

Simon Waller from Experian was our guest speaker,
* emphasising Experian’s geographical and sector reach
* highlighting the current market drivers
* explaining how the range of Experian’s services and products complement each other
* describing Experian’s contribution to current and future debt management practice.

In our business stream sessions we took differing approaches. The credit professionals discussed and shared good practice, both external and internal, while the software professionals focused on a particular application type - product selection - and explored the good, the bad and the downright horrible.

Aleks Tomczyk, our MD, concluded the business part of the day by presenting the up to date company overview and forward look. Of course it included his legendary list of essential P-words for successful business. We’re sure he has devised a program to automatically add another P-word to the list each time he gives a presentation … Persistent Proselytisation Produces Prime Performance.

The day was not done, however, as we later relaxed at the splendid Tomczyk barbecue (including the bit where we played Party Puzzles - must be the P-word obsession), where Caroline and Aleks’s hospitality rounded off a fine day.