Brackwell Freight Ltd / BB-Demo – Qbr
Callcompleted
Brackwell Freight Ltd: documents · 2026-09-30 15:30
On the 30 Sep 2026 QBR, new Finance Director Gareth Whitlam said fewer than four of forty Growth seats are active and he may not renew at the same size or price. Usage rests largely on one analyst, Aisha Rahman.
What was said
What this says
Current to 10 Oct 26On the 30 Sep 2026 QBR, new Finance Director Gareth Whitlam said fewer than four of forty Growth seats are active and he may not renew at the same size or price. Usage rests largely on one analyst, Aisha Rahman.
What happened: Marcus Bell opened with usage, which is under four active users a day against forty licensed, down by about a third on the prior quarter. Questions asked are lower than in the summer, and a good share come from Aisha.
Customer view: Gareth was hired to cut software spend and will review this line by line. Marcus could not name a contract the brain had saved, and Aisha said the benefit is about an evening a week.
Commercial: Contract end is 30 Nov 2026 and renewal starts 1 Dec 2026, at the current £44,000 a year. Gareth will resist a rise and may downsize; Tom owns the terms and must hear his position first.
Watch: Service is quiet, with one ticket and no overdue invoices, so this is value risk, not money risk. Aisha is the key person and asked for admin help.
Themes
Current to 9 Oct 26Theme
Low usage, renewal doubt
Importance
renewal
Sentiment
negative
Voice
decision-maker
Who was there
BB-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
Current to 9 Oct 26- Marcus Bell sends the usage breakdown by team, person and connector before Gareth speaks to Tom.
- Marcus books the depot session and a separate admin session with Aisha.
- Marcus confirms the notice date in writing and passes Gareth's position to Tom.
Risks
Current to 9 Oct 26- Gareth may refuse a price rise or renew the Growth subscription at a smaller size.
- Usage rests heavily on Aisha, so the value case is fragile if she is away.
- The renewal notice date was not stated on the call and is still to be confirmed in writing.
Opportunities
Current to 9 Oct 26- A depot account manager working session could widen use beyond one analyst.
- An agreed definition of a good month would give Gareth a value measure he can check alone.
Transcript
Marcus Bell NoneHello, can you both hear me alright? I've got Aisha on the list already. Gareth, are you there?
Aisha Rahman NoneHi Marcus, yes, I can hear you. Just flagging, I think Gareth is still finishing something else, he said he'd be a couple of minutes.- Marcus Bell NoneNo problem at all. How's your week been? Busy?
- Aisha Rahman NoneBusy, yeah. End of the month, so the depots are all chasing figures. It's the usual Wednesday scramble before the quarter closes.
- Marcus Bell NoneMm, I know that feeling. I'll just share my screen so it's ready when he arrives. I've pulled the numbers for the quarter and I'd like to walk you through them, then talk about the renewal.
Gareth Whitlam NoneAfternoon. Sorry, the previous meeting overran. Is this the quarterly review?- Marcus Bell NoneIt is, yes. Afternoon, Gareth. Thanks for making the time. I know you've only been with us on this account since the spring, so I'm happy to go back over anything from the start.
- Gareth Whitlam NoneI've read the pack you sent on Monday. I understand what the brain does in principle. What I still doubt is whether we're getting anything out of it. So let's start with usage, please.
- Marcus Bell NoneRight, yes, that's exactly where I wanted to start. So, this is the Growth plan, forty licensed users, and the chart here is how many of those were actually active on an average day over the last thirty days.
- Gareth Whitlam NoneIt looks like under four.
- Marcus Bell NoneIt is under four, yes. Just under, on average. And that's down by about a third on the quarter before. I'd rather say that plainly than have you find it yourself.
- Gareth Whitlam NoneForty seats, fewer than four people. Forty-four thousand a year. So what exactly are we paying for?
- Marcus Bell NoneThat's a fair question, and I'm not going to dodge it. Can I split it into two bits? One is what the brain is doing today for the people who do use it. The other is why more people aren't.
- Gareth Whitlam NoneGo on. Show me the usage first.
- Marcus Bell NoneOkay. So this view is questions asked, month by month. It's lower than it was in the summer, not dramatically, but it's lower. And if I filter by who is asking, a good share of them come from Aisha.
- Aisha Rahman NoneSorry, is that a problem? I mean, I do use it quite a lot for the Tuesday operations review. I wasn't sure whether that was how it was meant to be used.
- Marcus Bell NoneNo, not at all, it's exactly what it's for. It's just that when one person asks a big share of the questions, the value is quite fragile. If you were off for a fortnight, the numbers would nearly flatline.
- Gareth Whitlam NoneSo the value of a forty-seat licence rests on one analyst. I'm not sure I'd describe that as a platform for the business.
- Marcus Bell NoneI'd say it's a fair description of where the usage has got to, Gareth. It's not where we wanted it to be when you bought it.
- Aisha Rahman NoneIf I can add something. When we started, the depot account managers were being shown it in sessions, and then the sessions stopped. Some of them went back to their spreadsheets. I don't think they dislike it. I think they've just forgotten about it.
- Gareth Whitlam NoneForgotten. That's a charitable word for forty seats unused.
- Aisha Rahman NoneSorry, I didn't mean to make light of it. Just flagging that it's not a technical thing. I haven't seen anything break.
- Marcus Bell NoneThat matches what I see. Let me show the health side, because it's quiet in a good way. One ticket in the last thirty days, nothing high priority, and Aisha's was answered inside the response time for your plan. No overdue invoices on your side either, so thank you for that.
- Gareth Whitlam NonePaying on time isn't the same thing as getting value. My team pays everyone on time.
- Marcus Bell NoneAgreed. I wasn't presenting it as value, only that nothing's broken on the service side. The question is use.
- Gareth Whitlam NoneThen let's talk about use. Which teams were meant to use it? The original purpose, as I understand it, was revenue operations and the depot account managers seeing accounts, delivery-exception tickets and calls together.
- Marcus Bell NoneThat's right. Accounts from the CRM, delivery exceptions from the helpdesk, and the recorded calls, so that someone looking at a retail contract can see the whole picture and spot trouble early, before the customer rings to complain.
- Gareth Whitlam NoneAnd has it spotted any? Give me one example where it saved us a retail contract.
- Marcus Bell NoneHonestly, I don't have a clean example I can put in front of you today, and I'd rather not make one up. What I can say is that Aisha uses it each week for the exceptions view before the Tuesday review.
- Aisha Rahman NoneThat's true. Before, I'd spend most of Monday evening pulling it together by hand. Now it's a few questions. I can't tell you which contract it saved, though. I just know the review is on time and I'm not going cross-eyed on a Monday.
- Gareth Whitlam NoneSo the benefit is that one analyst saves an evening a week.
- Aisha Rahman NoneWell, at the moment, yes. Probably. Sorry, I'm not sure how else to put it.
- Marcus Bell NoneIt's honest, Aisha, don't apologise. Gareth, that's my read too. It's a real benefit, it's just much smaller than the licence was bought to deliver, and that gap is on both of us. We didn't keep the roll-out going after the first few months.
- Gareth Whitlam NoneI'm glad you said that. I'll be straight with you. I was hired to cut software spend. This one is going to be looked at line by line.
- Marcus Bell NoneUnderstood. And I'd prefer you looked at it line by line with the right numbers in front of you than with a nice story. So can I suggest what I'd do?
- Gareth Whitlam NonePlease.
- Marcus Bell NoneThree things. First, I send you a usage breakdown by team and by person, so you can see exactly who is active and who has never logged in. Second, I set up a short working session with the depot account managers, thirty minutes, with Aisha, on their own accounts and their own exceptions. Not a demo. Third, we write down, together, what a good month looks like, so that at the next review we have something to measure against.
- Gareth Whitlam NoneShow me the usage, yes. The sessions, fine. What do you mean by a good month?
- Marcus Bell NoneA target for the number of people active each week, and the kinds of question they should be asking. Something you could look at without needing me in the room.
- Aisha Rahman NoneCould I ask for one thing? I'd like some help with the admin side. I can add people and I can see the connectors, but I'm not confident I'd know what to do if something stopped loading. I don't want to guess.
- Marcus Bell NoneOf course. I'll book half an hour with you on that, separate from the depot session, and I'll get Hannah's team to give you the short list of what to check and when to raise a ticket.
- Aisha Rahman NoneThank you. That would help a lot. I've been a bit on my own with it.
- Gareth Whitlam NoneLet's turn to the contract, since that's what this is really about. The term ends on 30 Nov 2026 and renewal is 1 Dec 2026. Is that correct?
- Marcus Bell NoneThat's right. Contract end is 30 Nov 2026, and the renewal would start on 1 Dec 2026. It's the same Growth plan, forty users, at the current forty-four thousand a year, invoiced and contracted.
- Gareth Whitlam NoneAnd what will it be at renewal? I'd assume you're about to tell me it goes up.
- Marcus Bell NoneI'm going to be careful, because the commercial terms are Tom's, not mine, and I don't want to quote you something off the top of my head. What I can tell you is that the price list changed this year, and customers on the older list were written to about it earlier in the year. Tom will come to you with the actual renewal terms.
- Gareth Whitlam NoneThen let me put on record where I am. I'm not minded to agree to a rise for a service that fewer than four people use. If the figure goes up, I'll need a reason I can justify line by line.
- Marcus Bell NoneUnderstood, and I'll make sure Tom hears that in those words. I don't want him walking in cold.
- Gareth Whitlam NoneGood. And I may not renew at the same size. Forty seats is far more than we use.
- Marcus Bell NoneThat's a legitimate option to look at, and again it's one for Tom to work through with you. What I can do from my side is make sure the usage picture is complete, so that whichever way it goes, you decide on facts.
- Gareth Whitlam NoneRight. When do you need a decision by?
- Marcus Bell NoneThere's a notice period before the renewal date, so I'd like us to have the working sessions done and the value picture agreed well ahead of that. I'll put the exact date in the follow-up so there's no ambiguity.
- Gareth Whitlam NonePut it in writing, yes. And I want the usage breakdown before I speak to Tom, not after.
- Marcus Bell NoneUnderstood. I'll have the breakdown with you by the end of the week, and I'll ask Tom to hold off until you've seen it.
- Aisha Rahman NoneIs it all right if I send the depot managers a note so they know the session is coming? I'd rather it came from me than from a stranger.
- Marcus Bell NonePlease do, that's much better. I'll send you a couple of suggested dates and you pick the ones that suit the depots.
- Gareth Whitlam NoneOne more thing. When I get the breakdown, I want it to say plainly which connectors are in use and which aren't. If we're paying for eight and using three, I want to know.
- Marcus Bell NoneYes, fair. I'll include the connectors, what each one feeds, and how recently each one loaded. Shall we book thirty minutes in a fortnight or so to go through it with you, once you've had a chance to read it?
- Gareth Whitlam NoneFine. Send an invite. I'll decide whether I attend when I've seen the numbers.
- Marcus Bell NoneThat's fair. Right, so, to recap. I send the usage breakdown by team, person and connector by the end of the week. I set up the depot session and a separate admin session with Aisha. Tom gets your position on the renewal before he contacts you. And I confirm the notice date in writing. Anything I've missed?
- Gareth Whitlam NoneNo. That's what I'd expect to see. We'll see what the numbers say.
- Aisha Rahman NoneNothing from me. Thanks, Marcus, I appreciate the admin session.
- Marcus Bell NoneCheers, both. Thanks for being straight with me. Speak soon.
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