Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | June 2010 50 continually do in order to grind your margins down. It’s about supporting your business and supporting your customers. How is the business turnaround programme progressing? When new CEO Jamie Odell took the helm last February, he commissioned a comprehensive review of the Aristocrat business which included detailed analyses of company performance, internal resources, employee engagement and customer sentiment. In August, Jamie announced details of a three- to-five-year strategy to turn around our performance by serving our customers better. The strategy is built on four clear themes that reflect the changes we will be making, as follows: • ‘Player led, technologydriven’ recognises that the winning games of the future will come from working with customers and leading edge technology. • ‘Best games and systems’ describes our commitment to deliver tailored game content with more choices that work for players, including games tailored for the Australian and New Zealand markets. • ‘Right markets, right segments’ means taking a more structured approach to decisions around the markets and segments we serve. • ‘World class organisation’ is all about building a lean and effective Aristocrat, with the right behaviours andcapabilities to ensure we succeed. We are still in the early stages of our three-tofive-yearturnaround,wearemaking important and steady progress across the breadth of our strategic change agenda. We have clear performance benchmarks in place at all levels of the organisation and are progressing to plan. Do you change the maths of the game from one market to another? Maths is one of our core strengths and we do not tend to change it too much from one market to another. We have some great games designers and patented maths models, including Reel Power™ and player; and that we have the right people on the ground to deliver the best product and service to our customers. You have a lot of successful products with sticking power in Asia Pacific. How do you balance consolidating on that and at the same time innovating? One of our key initiatives is to deliver a greater quantity of products to the Asia Pacific markets. We are focusing on how we can access a larger range now available in the US and then customise those games to suit the regions. That doesn’t mean we take the exact same product and drop it in to the market. Others have done that and it hasn’t worked very successfully. We’re very focused on understanding what Asian players want. As part of this work, we are hosting some seminars at G2E Asia with the key operators. They have insights on future trends in the market and valuable feedback, both of which will help us to deliver the best possible product. We’ve already seen the benefits of this approach. A few years ago our customers told us they needed an Asian link product, so we gave them FA FA FA, configured for the regional market. The value of customer consultation was proven by the trend of other manufacturers focusing onmore Asian games and Asian link products. Of course, we want to continue to lead in the market, rather than waiting for other people to set new trends. How do we do that?Customer feedbackand technologywill drive our product development, including functionality, interaction with players, community gaming and other innovative approaches. Some feedback we got from the judges in our Supplier Awards 2010 was that Aristocrat is very flexible on cost. How do you manage that without eroding your margin? We’re very strategic on how we want to run our business, our margins and costs. Like any other business, it is a major focus. Last year, due to the economic pressures on operators caused by the global economic situation, we recognised the need for some flexibility in payment terms and pricing. We found that a little flexibility in tough times adds to the relationship with the operator. It’s not something that you 5 Dragons Hyperlink®, which we leverage for individual markets. What are Aristocrat’s plans for Asia Pacific for the rest of 2010? We’re focused on structuring our business in Asia Pacific sowe can deliver thebest games toour customers across the region.We are ensuringwe operate in the right markets and the right segments, with a strong product offering.Wearedeveloping stronger relationships with customers, whether they are in Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Macau or in other emerging markets. We expect to release another Asian theme towards the end of the year. That’s not to say everything has to be Asian, but it’s about understanding what those customers want and then tailoring it for them. For example, it could be an existing hyperlink format, but then repackaged and badged with some new features and functionality. There are also the fundamentals of making sure our business is sustainable for years to come and supply the best possible products that will churn. Can you explain what you mean by ‘churn’? Churn can simply be providing new games software in existing cabinets on the floor, without replacing the cabinet. The most important point is that players like to see something new and fresh on the floors that’s interesting and entertaining and creates some new product variety. If you have the right basic product and game, you can expand on that platformand drive player demand. That’s something casinos want. It makes good business sense to make sure you have the right mix of product on the floor to create more revenue for the operator. Even a couple of dollars a day per machine across a lot of machines all adds up very quickly. One of our core focuses is to have the best games and systems. Once you have the best games, the best systems, the best people and strategy, you have the basis for a successful business. If we can deliver on most of our customers’ requirements and drive product and technologies in line with player requirements, it’s a win- win situation. Talking Heads