Breaking ground in London
F&A update
In September, London served as the venue and launching pad for a major
initiative aimed at breaking down walls between our European offices and
mobilizing our F&A marketing efforts in a genuinely cross-border way. With the
arrival of the euro and the birth of Euroland now imminent, Peter Greenberg,
F&A's global business manager, says 'our improved performance in the EU will
demand that we take a more collaborative and cohesive approach in all our
efforts throughout the whole of the market. This is how our clients organize
themselves in Europe, and we have to mirror that approach.'
State of play
Specific workshops
Working forum
Facing challenges
Flexible teams
What sNewS Issue 10'October 1998
Alex von Ungern-Sternberg, addressing the MCT concept
The September 16 meeting
brought together some 85
professionals: the full team of
European F&A account managers,
including commodity trade finance,
as well as product specialists from
investment banking and corporate
finance. It marked the culmination of
volunteer-led, preparatory meetings
that were arranged in Frankfurt in
early July and then again in Paris
this August; these fixed the content
and structure of the London affair,
and thrashed out a list of priority
sectors and customers in F&A and
related industries. The target sectors
addressed in London include food
processing, food retail, dairy, beverages,
and fresh produce. Henceforth, they will
be handled by a series of cross-border,
cross-functional 'market core teams'
(MCT) which, as a result of the London
meeting, have already set their sights on a
series of major companies that are pan-
European in their commercial scope
and/or ambition.
The managing board was represented by
investment banking's head, Alex von
Ungern-Sternberg, who addressed the
MCT concept with particular emphasis on
large food companies. This was followed
by Brian Havill who described M&A as
'a phenomenon that emanates from the
quality of our relationships.' (see related
article on pages 12-13). Finally, there were
product-specific presentations from John
Campbell (equity research), Richard
Gormley (fixed income), and Paul ffolkes-
Davis (ECM/new issues), all of whom
brought relationship managers up to date
on our state of readiness and actual
capabilities. These were received with
particular interest.
What followed was a series of parallel
workshops whose immediate purpose
was to further explore opportunities in
the F&A focus sectors mentioned above.
They also established platforms for
future coordination. Participants in the
food processing meeting praised the
quality of the group interaction and the
level of discussion, which focused on
three leading European multinationals
from the standpoint of their likely 20-
year strategy. Workshop participants also
resolved to prepare a strategie
presentation for one of our target clients,
a leading global player in this field. The
dairy workshop led by Mariano de
Vescovado of Milan identified a number
of other opportunities for European
companies in the Far East, Central
America and Eastern Europe. But FAR's
Adrie Zwanenberg (also present at the
dairy workshop) introducés a note of
caution. 'Everyone wants to develop new
products and improve cliënt relations.
But actually building the knowledge base
that makes this possible will be a two-
way process requiring much more
frequent contact between researchers and
relationship managers.'
Jacqueline Pieters, a Dutch relationship
manager in corporate banking, agrees.
Closely involved with the fresh produce
team, she points out that 'our target
customers in the fresh produce sector
operate on a global scale. This makes it
imperative that we organize our own
efforts in the same way. The workshop
revealed how often we have target
customers who are prospects of one
European office and actual clients of
another, with neither of the
two offices being aware of this
fact. Flaving a working forum
in which to discuss the market
in a structured way is essential
if we're going to coordinate
our efforts over the Continent
as a whole. This was the real
value of the London meeting
and it highlights the cross
border potential of the MCT
concept. The challenge is to
really make it work, and we
know we will.'
Says Stefan Riphaus, head of Frankfurt's
food retail team, 'I arn wholly convinced
that the MCT approach is the sole way
for RI to climb the learning curve. After a
phase of internationalization, and after
the construction of our investment
banking arm, this is the single biggest
challenge we face.' Ben Davies, one of the
organizers of the London affair, confirms
this view. 'The whole point of the MCT
approach is that it's about a whole new
way of working. It's a methodology, or
tooi, that we can use to stimulate the kind
of focused cross-border, cross-functional
work that is a key to the success of our
cliënt focus strategy. It is a way of
dynamically leveraging all of our expertise
in order to deliver superlative value at the
end of the day.'
The key point about the pan-European
MCTs is that they will be encouraged to
operate outside of organizational 'boxes.'
The aim is to be able to identify
opportunities, mobilize knowledge and
resources, and capture opportunities as
they arise, if not identify them in advance.
It is only logical that the teams should be
flexible and self-managed entities:
