Merriott Lyle Distribution / BB-Demo – Qbr
Callcompleted
Merriott Lyle Distribution: documents · 2025-08-11 10:30
Quarterly review with the CFO present. Daily active use is about a quarter of licences, invoices match the order form, and Malcolm Ridgway wants a value case with a base before the end-February renewal.
What was said
What this says
Current to 11 Oct 26Quarterly review with the CFO present. Daily active use is about a quarter of licences, invoices match the order form, and Malcolm Ridgway wants a value case with a base before the end-February renewal.
What happened: Daniel Okafor ran the QBR with Deepa Chauhan, Tariq Saleem and, for part of it, CFO Malcolm Ridgway. Usage was up on the previous quarter and invoices matched the order form at £116k.
Customer view: Malcolm asked for the value, not the usage, and said he would not accept a number without its base. Deepa could not give a figure for the cost of stop-account delays but agreed to pull dated examples with credit control.
Commercial: Malcolm asked about price now and Daniel would only commit to putting the price position in writing with the renewal proposal. Daniel told him seats are not needed, which Malcolm welcomed.
Watch: A mapping ticket splits some accounts in two, and Deepa wants to confirm any change first. The CFO's focus on return makes the value page for the board pack the key deliverable.
Themes
Current to 9 Oct 26Theme
QBR value case, renewal ahead
Importance
renewal
Sentiment
mixed
Voice
decision-maker
Who was there
BB-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
Current to 9 Oct 26- Daniel Okafor to send the written summary, including the invoice match, the same day.
- Deepa Chauhan to pull dated stop-account examples with credit control for the account-data review.
- Daniel Okafor to offer two or three training dates by the end of the week and a renewal proposal with the price position.
Risks
Current to 9 Oct 26- The CFO questions value against a quarter of licences in daily use and will not accept figures without a base.
- The price position at renewal is unanswered and was only promised in writing later.
- Account mapping between the branch system and the CRM may split one account in two.
Opportunities
Current to 9 Oct 26- A branch manager training session on their own accounts, with regional directors attending, can deepen adoption.
- Putting the usage trend beside Deepa's stop-account examples gives the board a one-page value case.
Transcript
Daniel Okafor NoneMorning, everyone. Thank you all for making the time. Let me just check who's joined. Deepa, I can see you, and Tariq. Is Malcolm with us yet?
Malcolm Ridgway NoneI'm here. Camera's being awkward, so you'll have to make do with my voice. What has changed since the last one?- Daniel Okafor NoneGood question, and I'll come to it properly. A fair bit, mostly in the right direction. How's everybody's week been? Is it as wet in Birmingham as it is down here?
Deepa Chauhan NoneIt's been grey since Friday. Honestly it suits a Monday of spreadsheets. Can I say the one thing I need from today, so I don't forget?- Daniel Okafor NonePlease do.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneI want to leave with a view of whether the branch managers are really using the account view, and whether credit control are in it as well. Those are the two groups I keep getting asked about.
- Daniel Okafor NoneThat's a good thread to hang the whole hour on, and I think the numbers will help you. Tariq, you normally start with the open tickets. Shall we do that first, then I'll share the usage?
Tariq Saleem NoneYes, let's. We've got two open from the last month. Neither was high priority. One was a how-to on filtering by branch, and that's answered. The other is a mapping question between the branch system and the CRM, and I've got the load log open so I can speak to it.- Daniel Okafor NoneThanks, Tariq. And just to close the loop on the how-to one, was the answer clear enough that your team could pass it on?
- Tariq Saleem NoneIt was. I put it in the shared notes for the branch managers. They've stopped asking me by email, which is a small win in itself.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneThat's the thing I like most. Fewer spreadsheets going round by email. Six months ago I was getting the same account list in four different versions.
- Malcolm Ridgway NoneFour versions of a debtor list is how you end up chasing an account that's already paid. Carry on.
- Daniel Okafor NoneRight. Let me share my screen. Can you all see it? It's the usage overview for the quarter.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneYes, I can see it. A bit small. Could you make it larger?
- Daniel Okafor NoneIs that better? Good. So the headline first. Over the last thirty days, the average number of people active each day is just under fifty. Compared with the previous quarter, that's up by around half as many again.
- Malcolm Ridgway NoneOut of how many?
- Daniel Okafor NoneTwo hundred licensed users. So a quarter of the licences are in daily use. I know that sounds modest to someone who counts everything, Malcolm, but for a business with this many branches, going from a standing start, it's a healthy curve.
- Malcolm Ridgway NoneA quarter of what I'm paying for, then. What does that do to the cost per active user?
- Daniel Okafor NoneIt comes down every month the active number rises, and the contract is a fixed annual subscription, so the cost of the brain doesn't move. The value side is where it gets interesting, and I'll show you that in a moment.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneWhich branches are driving the rise? Which account, which branch? I'd want to know whether it's the big depots or the small ones.
- Daniel Okafor NoneLet me be careful here, because I'd rather not guess. What I can see is the team level rather than the branch level. Key-account managers and credit control are the heaviest groups. Branch managers are growing but from a lower base.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneThat's about what I expected. Credit control are the ones I can get into the room. The branch managers need more of a push from the regional directors.
- Tariq Saleem NoneI can break it down by branch group if you want it. The access logs carry the branch code. It's a job for me to run, not a setting in the brain.
- Daniel Okafor NoneThat would be lovely, Tariq. Maybe we leave that with you and Deepa, and I'll make sure anything from our side is there to support it.
- Malcolm Ridgway NoneBefore we go on. The invoices. Is everything we've been billed in line with what we signed? I don't want a surprise at the year end.
- Daniel Okafor NoneYes. The order form says one hundred and sixteen thousand, five hundred pounds a year, and the invoiced figure matches it exactly. There's nothing overdue on your account, and nothing queried.
- Malcolm Ridgway None£116,500 contracted, £116,500 invoiced. Good. Put it in writing, please, so I can attach it to the board pack.
- Daniel Okafor NoneOf course. I'll include it in the summary I send after this call, so you'll have it today.
- Malcolm Ridgway NoneFine. Now, what's the value? Not the usage. The value.
- Daniel Okafor NoneThat's fair. Can I come at it from the questions people are asking? It's the best single measure we have. The number of questions asked in the brain has risen faster than the number of users, which tells me people who log in are coming back and asking more.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneShow me where that number comes from. Is it per person or across the whole company?
- Daniel Okafor NoneAcross the company, and I can split it by person. Here. The top few users account for a good share, but it isn't one person carrying it. There's a decent spread across credit control and the key-account team.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneGood. I was worried it was mostly me and Tariq testing things.
- Tariq Saleem NoneIt was in the first month. Not any more. I checked when I saw the chart earlier.
- Malcolm Ridgway NoneQuestions about what, though? I don't care if they're asking what the weather is.
- Daniel Okafor NoneMostly an account's orders, disputes and open invoices together. That's what you bought it for. A credit controller can ask whether an account on hold has an open dispute with a branch, and get an answer without ringing three people.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneThat's the case I keep using with the regional directors. Credit control phoned the branch, the branch phoned the key-account manager, and the account sat on stop for a week over a dispute that was already settled.
- Malcolm Ridgway NoneAnd the cost of that week is?
- Deepa Chauhan NoneI can't give you a figure today, Malcolm, and I won't make one up. But I can pull the stop-account examples with credit control and show you how long they've been open since the brain went in. Let's get credit control in the room for that.
- Malcolm Ridgway NoneDo that. Bring dates and the accounts, and the base for any percentage. I won't accept a number without the base.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneUnderstood. It'll be in the account-data review next month, and I'll copy you.
- Daniel Okafor NoneAnd if it helps, we can put the usage trend next to it so the board sees both together. Just to close the loop, is that something you'd want in the pack, Malcolm?
- Malcolm Ridgway NoneOne page. Not ten.
- Daniel Okafor NoneOne page. Noted.
- Tariq Saleem NoneCan I go back to the second ticket for a moment? The mapping one. It's the part I'd rather get ahead of than let drift.
- Daniel Okafor NonePlease. It's yours.
- Tariq Saleem NoneSo when a customer account exists in the branch system under a trading name and in the CRM under the registered name, the brain sometimes treats them as two accounts. I've checked the load log and the nightly refresh itself is fine. It completes before seven each morning. It's a mapping question, not a loading one.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneTariq, you'll tell me before you change any mapping, yes? That's the thing I'd be most nervous about. One account split in two makes credit control's life hard.
- Tariq Saleem NoneAlways. I'll send you the list of pairs I think are the same, and you or your team confirm them before anything changes.
- Daniel Okafor NoneThat's a sensible way round, and our support engineers are already looking at the ticket. If it would help to have someone from our side join your review to agree the matching rules, I'm happy to arrange it.
- Tariq Saleem NoneYes, I'd like that. Mostly so the rules are written down somewhere other than my head.
- Malcolm Ridgway NoneI'm going to have to leave in a few minutes. Anything commercial I need to hear before I go?
- Daniel Okafor NoneTwo things. First, the renewal. Your term runs to the end of February, and as your CSM it's my job to start that conversation well ahead of it, so you're not hearing about it with a month to go. I'll come back to you by the end of next month with a proposal for how we'd like to approach it.
- Malcolm Ridgway NoneAnd the price? I'd like to know now if there's a change.
- Daniel Okafor NoneI don't want to guess a number I don't own, Malcolm. What I can say is that the order form you signed is the document that governs, and anything I send will be measured against it. I'll put the price position in writing with the renewal proposal.
- Malcolm Ridgway NonePut it in writing. And the second thing?
- Daniel Okafor NoneHeadroom. You have two hundred licensed users and about a quarter of them are active daily, so you don't need more seats. What I'd suggest is we spend the next quarter getting the branch managers on, rather than talking about anything bigger.
- Malcolm Ridgway NoneThat's the first supplier this year to tell me I don't need more. Good. Right, I have to go. Deepa, copy me on the stop-account examples. Daniel, send the summary today.
- Daniel Okafor NoneWill do. Thank you, Malcolm.
- Malcolm Ridgway NoneMalcolm Ridgway, signing off. Thanks all.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneWell, that went better than I feared. He's been asking about the return for weeks.
- Daniel Okafor NoneHe asked fair questions, and I think the answers hold up. Deepa, shall we use the rest of the time on the branch managers? You said that was the thing you needed.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneYes. Here's my problem. The branch managers are used to acting on rumour. Somebody at another branch says an account is slow to pay, and that's what gets believed. I want them looking at the account view first.
- Daniel Okafor NoneHow is the team finding it so far? The branch managers I mean, the ones who've tried it.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneMixed. The ones who've tried it like it. The ones who haven't say they don't have time, which is code for they don't know what to ask.
- Daniel Okafor NoneThat's very common, and it's an easy one to fix. What tends to work is a short session built around the five questions that branch managers actually ask in a week, using their own accounts. Not a feature tour. We can run that as a training session, and Tariq can help us pick the accounts.
- Tariq Saleem NoneI'd pick a couple of the awkward accounts, the ones with a trading name and a registered name. It would show the matching working and show the problem if it still exists.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneI like that. Honest, not polished. And I'll make sure the regional directors are there, otherwise nobody takes it seriously.
- Daniel Okafor NoneGood. Then I'll come back to you both by the end of the week with two or three dates, and we can pick the one that suits the regional directors.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneThanks, Daniel. That's what I needed. Thanks, Tariq. I'll look out for your summary.
- Tariq Saleem NoneCheers, both. I'll send the list of account pairs once I've run it.
- Daniel Okafor NoneBest wishes, all. Speak soon.
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