Troika Newsdesk
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26th July 2007

Troika is delighted to announce that today it has agreed to be acquired by Navigant Consulting, the international consulting firm. Together with Navigant, we believe we can build a major consulting firm which will continue to redefine the delivery of Professional Services. We are delighted to have found a company to partner with which shares our belief in the value of independent thinking, born out of industry experience, creativity and practicality and look forward to bringing enhanced offerings to Troika’s client base in UK Financial Services as well as Navigant clients around the world.

For more details see the attached press release

For more information on Navigant see http://www.navigantconsulting.co.uk

For queries, please contact Andrew Stewart, Managing Director, on 07778 967771 or Andrew Veal, Marketing Director, on 07710 319665

 

March 2007 - Troika team member completes Saharan endurance challenge


Many of us contemplate doing a marathon; but very few people would consider doing the equivalent of six marathons in seven days – as Chris Gibson did.

Chris, a Principal Consultant in our Retail Banking team has recently returned from the Marathon Des Sables (MDS) or the ‘Marathon of The Sands’ in the Moroccan Sahara.

From March 24 to 31st, Chris was one of 757 undertaking the 22nd MDS ¬- dubbed the ‘toughest footrace on earth’. Competitors must complete 150 miles in several stages over seven days. The desert terrain varies from flat sand with huge sand dunes, to mountainous and rocky.

Water was rationed for the runners who endured temperatures of around 45 degrees Celsius. Throughout the race they carried their entire week’s supply of food, and equipment for sleeping and cooking.

“Everyone struggled with different aspects of the race; water, lack of food, etc, but for me, it was the problems I had with my feet. I developed serious blisters, and existing knee injuries got worse which impeded my progress. But I didn’t enter an easy race, and the sense of achievement in the end is something I might not experience again in my life”, says Chris.

He describes his lowest point as when he hit ‘the wall’ on Day 4, the longest, 44-mile stage. “I was running over a 14km stretch of sand dunes when all the energy drained from me, I felt sick and it became a struggle to keep moving forward. I needed to eat but that was the last thing I felt like doing. Somehow I kept myself going until I reached the next checkpoint where I could take in some calories and refocus my thoughts for the next stage.”

One thing that kept Chris going was his goal of raising £10,000 for a Troika Foundation Charity, Thames Reach. Thames Reach are a London based organisation that raises money for the homeless and vulnerable. Will and determination won through and he finished the MDS in 518th place, raising over and above his sponsorship target.

Chris adds: “The only thing better than finishing the race was all the support from friends, family everyone at Troika, and raising money for Thames Reach.”
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April 2006 - Troika named "Best Small Consultancy Firm, 2006"


Troika, the UK financial services consultancy, is proud to announce that it was chosen as Best Small Consultancy Firm in the UK at the 2006 Management Consultancy Association Management Awards, held in London on the 3rd March 2006. Troika was nominated on the strength of its work with Bradford & Bingley, in which Troika helped B & B to negotiate a distribution deal with Legal & General.

When Bradford & Bingley decided to change the way it sold investment and insurance products, the operational implications were enormous. A small team from Troika helped Bradford & Bingley successfully negotiate a deal with Legal & General in which 200 of its staff transferred to L&G to sell L&G products in Bradford & Bingley branches.

It was a complex, high profile deal which had to be completed within an unprecedentedly short space of time. Troika was also responsible for its overall implementation, working closely with Bradford & Bingley’s own staff.

Roger Hattam, Managing Director, Group Products and Marketing at Bradford & Bingley commented: “Sorting this out was the biggest issue we faced in 2004. Once we made the decision to go down the single-tie route, we were locked into the January deadline. If we failed, we stood to lose one of our largest business lines in its entirety.”

Andrew Veal, Troika’s Marketing Director, said: “To win Best Small Firm at the MCA Awards is a huge achievement for us, and marks a real high point for us. 2005 was a big year for us, launching two new divisions, ResourceCo and Troika Benchmarking, and to be officially recognised for the quality of our core consulting work in the same year is a tremendous accolade”.
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November 2005 - Troika opens its Scottish Office

On 21 November 2005 Troika opened the doors of its Scottish office.

Located on St Andrew Square, in the heart of the City Centre, Troika is best placed to continue to provide the quality and service that we are renowned for. For contact details of our new location please visit the Contact Us page here...

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February 2005 - Troika/Slainte Mortgage Benchmarking product launched

We are now launching a benchmarking service for the Mortgage industry based once again on a service successfully provided to the Australian mortgage industry (clients include Westpac, ANZ and NAB, 3 of the top 4 lenders in the country) and will be based on data taken from the 2004 calendar year...

 

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August 2004 - Threadneedle Investments announces Bank of New York client servicing deal

Threadneedle Investments, the second largest UK retail investment funds group , today announced the agreement of a major retail administration lift-out deal with The Bank of New York. The deal means that from 1st October 2004 , The Bank of New York will manage Threadneedle’s existing Swindon-based Retail Client Services operations, with the operation and people becoming a key element of their future European retail client service offering. Threadneedle will become The Bank of New York’s largest transfer agency client. Threadneedle was advised throughout the selection and negotiation process by, amongst others, Troika, the specialist financial services management consultancy.

Threadneedle’s Head of Distribution, David Sachon said, “We have always been a forward-thinking organisation. This deal stems from our analysis of the major changes that will occur over the next decade as supermarkets, aggregators and platforms increasingly form the bridge between fund managers and clients. The challenge for our industry is to manage this potential reduction in business processing volumes whilst maintaining high quality service and containing unit costs.

We are confident that The Bank of New York, which services $1.6 trillion of assets for fund companies worldwide, will enable Threadneedle not only to continue meeting the service expectations of our clients but to exceed them.”

Threadneedle’s Chief Operating Officer, Crispin Henderson commented, “This really is a win-win deal. Most importantly it is a win for Threadneedle’s current and future retail clients with no change to the day-to-day interaction with Threadneedle. It is also a win for our Retail Client Services colleagues as they will become an integral part of a growing administration business, and a win for The Bank of New York as they gain a platform, which will form a key component of their administration capability, particularly in continental Europe.”

Nick Parkes, Managing Director of European Fund Services at The Bank of New York said “This transaction with Threadneedle further positions the Bank as a leading provider in Europe, enabling us to provide a full range of investor services to help clients move and manage their assets. Threadneedle’s business stands out due to the quality of the team and their commitment to technology, which we look forward to integrating into our organisation.”


For further comment please contact:

Threadneedle Investments: Samantha Slator, Communications Executive on 020 7464 5935
Bank of New York: Ivan Royle, Director of Communications on 020 7964 6119
Troika (UK) Ltd: Neil Mayall, Director on 020 7106 2580 or info@troika.co.uk
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August 2004 - UK life & pensions benchmarking indicates 50% of customer interactions could be cut


The first round of benchmarking from Troika and Slainte across 10 of the UK's leading life & pensions organisations indicates that the number of customer interactions carried out on each book of business could be reduced by half without compromising customer service.

Managing director of Troika, Andrew Stewart, comments "Surprisingly, the industry seems to be guilty of too much customer care! Although keeping customers informed of changes to their policy and the like is clearly vital, it seems that there's a lot of unnecessary paperwork being created here. Limiting customer contact to that which is essential should help to significantly reduce the cost of administering a life policy or a pension, thus making that product a lot more profitable.

A lot of focus in the past has gone into looking at costs per transaction. Although reducing the number of transactions per policy will probably increase the cost per transaction, in the long run it will reduce overall costs and hence cost per policy, and at least the cost will be going into value-added transactions."

The benchmarking exercise indicated that despite substantial technology investment over the last decade or so, on average more than half of costs in the life industry are related to staff. Interestingly, the majority of transactions are still conducted by post with the sector's investment in self-service technology remaining variable.

Whilst ongoing IT infrastructure investment levels are low, extra efficiencies could be achieved with the appropriate use of technology-with variations indicated in both the speed and accuracy of processes, results suggest that not all respondents are getting the most out of their technology despite the general uptake of workflow solutions.
Books which have been outsourced have not yet delivered significant operational benefits over in-house operations, although the researchers say that it is early days.

A spokesperson for one of the research participants said "The survey has provided real insights into how our own operations compare against the industry with a degree of detail and quality which was not previously available. The issues and challenges arising from our analysis have proved extremely useful in provoking positive debate on how we can continue to improve our services, increase productivity and reduce costs."

COMPANIES: Slainte, Troika
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