Ardenmore Pension Administration / BG-Demo – Demo
Callcompleted
Ardenmore Pension Administration · 26 Jun 2023 14:15
Harjit Bains and Matthew Grice saw chat and pages on a de-identified extract and responded well. Matthew offered to own the briefing pages. Starter remains pencilled at £26k with a 16 Aug 2023 decision target.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Harjit Bains and Matthew Grice saw chat and pages on a de-identified extract and responded well. Matthew offered to own the briefing pages. Starter remains pencilled at £26k with a 16 Aug 2023 decision target.
What happened: Nell Ashcombe and Tobias Renwick demoed chat and pages on the extract, with member identifiers removed and the data protection lead comfortable. Matthew's first question returned what he would have written himself.
Customer view: Harjit valued answers that point back to the source, because trustees ask where a number came from. Matthew said he would use the briefing page every week and volunteered to be an owner.
Commercial: Nell restated Starter at £26k including set-up, with Tom to send the proposal. Harjit wants it readable by the person who signs off spend, and 16 Aug 2023 is unchanged.
Watch: Harjit worries that without owners the brain goes stale. Tobias's architecture note must reach IT and the trustees.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Demo, Starter proposal pending
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- Tobias to send Harjit a one-page architecture note, which she can share with IT.
- Tom to send the proposal with the yearly and set-up parts separated.
- Matthew to keep a list of questions the demo did not answer.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Harjit fears the brain will go stale if nobody owns it after go-live.
- Trustees and IT must accept where the data lives and who can see it before signing.
- The person who signs off spend has not yet been on a call.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Matthew is a committed daily user and volunteered as a page owner.
- Briefing pages could be defined once and applied across about fifty schemes.
Transcript
Nell AshcombeHello both. Harjit, Matthew, can you hear us? Tobias is on as well, he's just finding his headset.
Harjit BainsHello, yes, we can hear you. Matthew's next to me, so if you get an echo, that's why.
Matthew GriceHi everyone. Sorry, I'm not usually in these. Harjit said I should come and ask the awkward questions.
Tobias RenwickHello, I'm here. Good afternoon. No apology needed, the awkward questions are the useful ones.- Nell AshcombeRight. Harjit, you've got your trustee meeting still fresh, I think. How did it go?
- Harjit BainsBetter than last time, thank you. We went in prepared, but it took a lot of hand work to do it. Which is rather the point of today.
- Nell AshcombeThen let's make it real. What we're going to show is the extract your team sent over, the meeting notes and correspondence, with member identifiers removed, loaded into a working copy of the brain. Tobias will say a word about where that sits first, because I suspect that's the question underneath everything.
- Tobias RenwickThank you. To be precise, the brain is built and run inside the customer's own Snowflake account. Nothing is copied into an environment of ours. The trade-off is that someone on your side has to own that account and its access controls, which I think is as it should be. For this demo we used a contained copy so that nothing here touches anything live.
- Harjit BainsAnd on the extract, I did check, our data protection lead was comfortable with the notes and the correspondence once the identifiers were out. I just want that on record.
- Tobias RenwickNoted, and thank you. The honest answer is that we would rather work with less data and have everyone relaxed than the reverse.
- Nell AshcombeOkay, sharing my screen now. Can you see that?
- Matthew GriceYes, I can see it. It's a bit small but I can read it.
- Nell AshcombeI'll make it bigger. So this is chat. Matthew, you pick the scheme. Pick any one from the extract and ask it what you'd ask before a trustee call.
- Matthew GriceUm. Let me think. Okay, can I ask what the trustees of this one have raised with us recently and whether anything is still open?
- Nell AshcombeGo for it. Type it exactly as you'd say it.
- Matthew GriceRight, it's thinking. Oh. Oh, that's, that's actually what I'd have written. It's listed three things and it says one is still open.
- Harjit BainsCan you click on the open one? Does it show where it came from?
- Nell AshcombeYes, each line points back to the source. That's deliberate. Say what happened, say how you know. If it can't point to the record, it shouldn't be telling you.
- Harjit BainsThat matters a lot to me. A trustee will ask where a number came from, and I can't say the system told me so.
- Matthew GriceWhat if it's wrong? Say two notes disagree with each other. Which one does it trust?
- Tobias RenwickA good question, and the honest answer is that it won't pretend they agree. It will show both and say that they differ. It doesn't resolve a conflict between two of your own records quietly. The trade-off is that you occasionally see a mess that was always there, but I think you'd prefer to see it.
- Matthew GriceYeah. Honestly, yes. That's better than a confident wrong answer.
- Nell AshcombeLet me show the other thing, which is pages. I've built a briefing for one scheme from the same material. Here's what the trustees have raised, here are the open items, here's what changed since the last meeting.
- Harjit BainsOh, that's the pack. That's my Wednesday night. Does it stay up to date or is that just for today?
- Nell AshcombeIt refreshes as the sources change. In a real set-up that's overnight, so by the morning it reflects the day before. It's one of the things customers tend to like most, because nobody is rebuilding it by hand.
- Matthew GriceCan I change it? If I want a different order, say, because one chair wants the numbers first?
- Nell AshcombeYes, it's your page. You edit the layout and the questions behind it. Would you like me to do that live?
- Matthew GricePlease, if it's not too much trouble.
- Nell AshcombeThere. I've moved the figures section to the top. Nothing to rebuild, it just reordered.
- Harjit BainsThat's neat. Matthew, you'd use that, wouldn't you?
- Matthew GriceEvery week. I'd use it every week. I'd probably want one per scheme, though. Is that a lot of work?
- Tobias RenwickNot per scheme, as such. You define the shape once, and it can be applied across schemes. The effort is in deciding what a good briefing contains, not in producing fifty of them.
- Harjit BainsGood. I'm thinking about who has to look after it afterwards, though. If we do this and then nobody owns it, it'll go stale like everything else.
- Nell AshcombeThat's the right worry. It's the commonest way these go wrong, so I'm glad you raised it. We'd agree owners at the start, and we'd check in with you after it's live so the thing doesn't drift.
- Matthew GriceFrom my side, I'd say I'd be one of those owners. I'd rather it was me than someone who doesn't use it.
- Harjit BainsNoted, and thank you, Matthew. Now, what will the trustees ask? I think they'd ask where the data lives, who can see it and whether anyone at BG-Demo can see it.
- Tobias RenwickAnd the answer I would give them is that it lives in your account, access is governed by your roles, and our people see only what you grant for support. I would put that in writing for them, with the architecture on a single page, so your IT lead and the trustees are reading the same thing.
- Harjit BainsThat would help. Please do. And is it fine for me to share that page with our IT lead before the next call?
- Tobias RenwickBy all means. I would rather they challenged it now than after you've signed.
- Nell AshcombeThen to the practical side. What we're proposing is Starter, which is built for one team, and this is your team. The total deal as pencilled is £25,500, which includes the one-off set-up. Tom will send the proposal with the yearly part and the set-up part laid out separately.
- Harjit BainsYes, that matches what we discussed. I'd like it written so that the person who signs off spend can follow it without me in the room.
- Nell AshcombeThat's exactly how we'll write it. And we're still looking at the middle of August for a decision, is that right?
- Harjit BainsYes, 16 Aug 2023 is still the target. That hasn't moved.
- Nell AshcombeGood. Then next steps. Tobias sends the one-page architecture note to Harjit. Tom sends the proposal. Harjit shares both with IT and the person who signs off, and Matthew keeps a list of anything the demo didn't answer so we can pick it up next time.
- Matthew GriceI'll do that. I've got a couple already.
- Harjit BainsThank you all, that was really helpful. Genuinely.
- Tobias RenwickThank you. Best of luck with the next trustee meeting. Goodbye.
- Nell AshcombeSpeak soon, both. Cheers.
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