Glen Renfrew
Putting the customer first
Sunday 16 October 2011
Choosing a corporate slogan can be tricky. Former CEO Glen Renfrew, one day out at the Reuter facility at Hauppage saw on its wall “Quality comes first”. Bravo, he said and rushed back to London with it. Henceforth that was to be the slogan, and so it became. But the old ’uns under whom he had learned as a trainee shook their heads and muttered: “When was that not the case since the first pigeon flew out of Aachen?” It fell flat, but he had it used. It made no difference, quality continued to come first, unchanged.
Michael Reupke
nbnbn
Michael Reupke
nbnbn
John Jessop's book
Friday 02 January 2009
I suppose ‘introduce’ is the word that confuses. Glen Renfrew, as head of the Computer Services unit, may have ‘introduced’ Stockmaster and Videomaster to the marketplace but the fact remains that it was Mike Nelson who established the relationship with Ultronic (via Bib Sinn, and having been rebuffed earlier by Jack Scantlin of Quotron) and therefore can claim credit for introducing both products to Reuters. Furthermore, GR was (presumably) appointed to the post by Nelson, who at the time was head of Economic Services. GR may have been the consummate salesman but MEN was the innovator behind Reuters’ adoption of electronic information retrieval services.
John Jessop
John Jessop
John Jessop's book
Thursday 09 October 2008
If correctly quoted from his book, Jessop is factually incorrect to credit the introduction of Stockmaster and Videomaster to Michael Nelson.
I do wholeheartedly share the view though that Michael Nelson deserves much, much more credit for Reuters successes than he has been given publicly. He indeed initiated the establishment of winners such as Reuters Monitor and Dealing.
The significance and fundamental Strength, as in Strengths, Weaknesses, Threats and Opportunities (SWOT) of the highly innovative Reuters Monitor in Reuters modern history may not be fully appreciated.
Videomaster, the Stockmaster successor, introduced by Glen Renfrew in 1964, was successfully challenged by Switzerland’s Telekurs’ Investdata Service in 1975. By February 1976, Reuters had a negative (cancellation) order book, amounting to US$1.3 million annual revenue in Switzerland alone. This was a highly significant part of Reuters total revenue and generator of profits in those days. By integrating Reuters Monitor and Videomaster functionality into a Single Terminal, a project spearheaded by David Ure, Reuters managed to see off Telekurs, after a four year dogfight for market share.
The strong currency, money market and news content of Reuters Monitor allowed Reuters to mask its lack of depth in fundamental equity coverage at the time.
Reuters Monitor, a project managed by André Villeneuve from the outset, also became the platform and funding cash cow for other ventures such as Dealing and Matching.
Hans Ouwerkerk
I do wholeheartedly share the view though that Michael Nelson deserves much, much more credit for Reuters successes than he has been given publicly. He indeed initiated the establishment of winners such as Reuters Monitor and Dealing.
The significance and fundamental Strength, as in Strengths, Weaknesses, Threats and Opportunities (SWOT) of the highly innovative Reuters Monitor in Reuters modern history may not be fully appreciated.
Videomaster, the Stockmaster successor, introduced by Glen Renfrew in 1964, was successfully challenged by Switzerland’s Telekurs’ Investdata Service in 1975. By February 1976, Reuters had a negative (cancellation) order book, amounting to US$1.3 million annual revenue in Switzerland alone. This was a highly significant part of Reuters total revenue and generator of profits in those days. By integrating Reuters Monitor and Videomaster functionality into a Single Terminal, a project spearheaded by David Ure, Reuters managed to see off Telekurs, after a four year dogfight for market share.
The strong currency, money market and news content of Reuters Monitor allowed Reuters to mask its lack of depth in fundamental equity coverage at the time.
Reuters Monitor, a project managed by André Villeneuve from the outset, also became the platform and funding cash cow for other ventures such as Dealing and Matching.
Hans Ouwerkerk
