Ardenmore Pension Administration / BG-Demo – Discovery
Callcompleted
Ardenmore Pension Administration · 5 Jun 2023 12:00
Harjit Bains described facts spread across five places and a trustee question the team could not answer in the room. Starter was pencilled at £26k in total. Member data rules and Snowflake are open questions, and she is not the signatory.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Harjit Bains described facts spread across five places and a trustee question the team could not answer in the room. Starter was pencilled at £26k in total. Member data rules and Snowflake are open questions, and she is not the signatory.
What happened: Nell Ashcombe ran a discovery call with Harjit Bains, who leads client relationships for about fifty schemes. Harjit said the team cannot meet its "no surprises" standard when facts sit in the administration system, CRM, emails, helpdesk and shared drive.
Customer view: The briefing pack is where the team loses most time, and Harjit called the pitch the right shape. Her worry is member data rules, and she did not know whether the company has Snowflake.
Commercial: Nell pencilled Starter at £26k as the whole deal value, set-up included. Harjit is not the final signature and wants a proposal that stands up for the person who signs off spend. She gave 16 Aug 2023 as a soft decision target.
Watch: The data protection lead and the Snowflake answer both gate the demo.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Discovery, fragmented client knowledge
Importance
upsell
Sentiment
positive
Voice
champion
Who was there
BG-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Harjit to check with the data protection lead what data can be used and find out about Snowflake.
- Nell to send a follow-up note and arrange a demo with Matthew, IT and Tobias Renwick.
- Tom to prepare a proposal separating the yearly and set-up parts.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Member data rules and the data protection lead's view could limit what data can be used.
- Harjit does not know whether the company has Snowflake, which the build depends on.
- She is not the final signatory, so the proposal must persuade someone absent from the call.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Starter for one team, pencilled at £25,500 in total including set-up.
- Scheme briefing pages address the pain Harjit named as costing most time.
Transcript
Nell AshcombeHello Harjit, can you hear me alright?
Harjit BainsHello Nell, yes, loud and clear. Can you see me? My camera's being slow today.- Nell AshcombeJust about, there you are. Thanks for giving us your lunch hour, I know that's not easy to find.
- Harjit BainsIt's fine, it's the only quiet slot I've got this week. I have a trustee meeting coming up on Thursday, so everything else has been swallowed by that.
- Nell AshcombeRight, then let's not waste it. What would you need to leave this call with, so it was worth the time?
- Harjit BainsHonestly, a sense of whether this is for us. I've seen the website and I've heard the pitch from a colleague who went to one of your events, but I don't really know what it does day to day for a team like mine.
- Nell AshcombeFair. Then I'll ask more than I tell, if that's alright. Tell me what a normal week looks like for your client relationship team. Who are you looking after?
- Harjit BainsSo we administer about fifty schemes, occupational schemes, all for employers across the Midlands. Each one has its own trustee board, its own sponsor, its own quirks. My team are the people the trustees and the sponsors actually talk to. If a trustee rings with a question about a member, or about a deadline, or about why a transfer took what it took, it lands with us.
- Nell AshcombeAnd when that call comes in, where do you go to answer it?
- Harjit BainsHa. That's the thing. It depends. There's the administration system, which is the record of truth for the member side. Then there's our CRM, which is where we're meant to log the conversations with trustees. Then there are the emails, and the helpdesk for the queries that come in from members, and then a shared drive full of meeting packs and minutes. And, if I'm honest, a lot of it is in people's heads.
- Nell AshcombeMm. And the bit in people's heads, who holds it?
- Harjit BainsMostly the longer-serving relationship managers. Matthew, for one, he's been with us a good while and he knows which trustee chair wants the numbers first and which one wants the story first. If he's off, it shows.
- Nell AshcombeSay what happened, say how you know. Can you give me one recent example where it showed?
- Harjit BainsYes, actually. A few weeks ago a trustee asked at a meeting why a particular group of queries had gone up. And we had the answer, in the end, but it took two of us most of an afternoon afterwards, pulling it out of the helpdesk and the notes and an old pack. In the room we said we'd come back to them. And I don't like saying that. What will the trustees ask? That's the question I always try to get ahead of, and that day I hadn't.
- Nell AshcombeThat's useful, thank you. So the pain is less that you don't have the data and more that you can't pull it together quickly enough to be ready.
- Harjit BainsYes. Exactly that. No surprises for the client. That's the standard I hold the team to, and we can't meet it when the facts are in five places.
- Nell AshcombeLet me describe what we do, and you tell me where it doesn't fit. We build one layer over those systems, the CRM, the emails, the helpdesk, the documents, and we build it inside your own Snowflake account, so the data doesn't go to us and sit somewhere else. Then your team asks it questions in plain English and it answers from the records, and shows where the answer came from.
- Harjit BainsRight. Okay. The Snowflake bit, I have to be careful. Do we have Snowflake? I'm not the technical one. I think our IT lead set something up, but I'd be guessing.
- Nell AshcombeThat's fine, and it's a good thing to find out rather than guess. Our CTO, Tobias, would take that through with your IT lead. For today I only want to know whether the problem is the right shape.
- Harjit BainsIt's the right shape. My worry is more about member data. We have rules about what can leave our environment and who can see what, and the trustees are quite strict, rightly. I would never share member data outside those rules.
- Nell AshcombeUnderstood, and I wouldn't ask you to. That's partly why it runs in your account. For a first look we could work from something much smaller and cleaner, things like meeting notes and trustee correspondence, with member identifiers taken out. Would that be a reasonable place to start?
- Harjit BainsThat might work. I'd need to check with our data protection lead first. I can't promise anything on that.
- Nell AshcombeNo promises needed. Just flag it, and we'll fit round whatever they say.
- Harjit BainsCan I ask something? What does a team like mine actually do with it? Is it, like, a search box?
- Nell AshcombePartly. Search and chat are the core. So Matthew, before a trustee call, could ask what has this scheme raised with us in the last quarter, and what's still open, and get a page that pulls it together. The second thing is pages you can keep, a briefing for each scheme, say, that stays current rather than being rebuilt before every meeting.
- Harjit BainsOh, that second one is interesting. The briefing pack is where we lose the most time. Somebody is always building it the night before.
- Nell AshcombeThat's the one customers tend to say changed their Monday meeting. But I'd rather you tell me whether it changes yours. What would the brain say, if you asked it about the last trustee meeting that went badly?
- Harjit BainsIt would probably say we didn't have the data to hand. Which is, well. Not the answer I'd want in the room.
- Nell AshcombeUnderstood. Then let's talk about size, so you're not guessing at that either. This looks like one team to start with. Yours. That's what our Starter tier is for: one team, a small number of connectors, search, chat and pages. I won't throw numbers around yet, but the deal as we've pencilled it is £25,500 in total, with the set-up work included.
- Harjit BainsRight. That total, that's the first year, with the implementation in it, not every year?
- Nell AshcombeCorrect, it's the whole deal value, set-up included. The yearly part is smaller, and Tom will set that out properly in a proposal so you can see the two pieces separately. I'd rather you saw it on paper than took my word on a call.
- Harjit BainsGood. I'm not the final signature on it, and I wouldn't want to be. I never buy without the person who signs off spend seeing it first. So whatever you send, I'll need it to stand up for someone who hasn't been on this call.
- Nell AshcombeOf course. We'd write it plainly so it does. Who else should be at the next conversation, besides you?
- Harjit BainsMatthew, definitely, he'd be the main user. And probably somebody from IT, for the Snowflake question. I'll have to see who has time.
- Nell AshcombeThen the next step is a demo on something of yours, once your data protection lead has said what's allowed. Tobias will join, since he can answer the IT questions directly, so you're not relaying them.
- Harjit BainsThat sounds sensible. We're hoping to decide by 16 Aug 2023, if that's helpful to know. It's not a hard line but the board cycle makes it a good target.
- Nell AshcombeThat helps a lot, thank you. We'll work back from it. So, to say it back: you'll check with your data protection lead on what we can use, you'll find out about Snowflake, and we'll find a time with Matthew and someone from IT. I'll send a note this afternoon with all of that.
- Harjit BainsPerfect. Thank you, Nell. That was easier than I expected. I think I'd braced for a sales pitch.
- Nell AshcombeNot today. Good luck with Thursday. Speak soon.
- Harjit BainsThanks, bye for now.
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