Slides That Follow Your Voice: Australian Accent All Hands

Slide 1: The quarter

0:17Morning, everyone. Thanks for squeezing in. For the people on the video link from the Coorabin plant, I can see about nine of you and a uh, a forklift. If the forklift's got questions it can put its hand up like everybody else. No? Fine. [chuckles]

0:32Right, the quarter. We shipped four hundred and eighteen thousand units between July and September, which is up six percent on the same quarter last year. Revenue was thirty-one point four million, up four percent, so yes, you've spotted it, we sold more and made less per unit, and I'll come back to that, because, look, it's the only number in here I'm actually concerned about.

Slide 2: Units and revenue

0:55First the good stuff. The Ridgeback secateurs, the ones with the replaceable blade that half of you told me were um, over-engineered, are now our best-selling product. eighty-four thousand pairs in the quarter.

Slide 3: 84,000 pairs: Ridgeback secateurs

1:08The warranty return rate is zero point three percent, which is the lowest for anything we've ever made. The team that designed them is sitting in the second row pretending not to listen, and I'd like the rest of you to make them feel awkward for about five seconds.

1:25[laughs] That'll do. That'll do. Look, for the record, I was one of the people who said it was over-engineered, in writing, and Deepa's kept the email, and I expect it'll turn up at my own retirement. Where was I. The recall. Yes.

1:41Now, the recall. In August we found that a batch of two thousand, sorry, two thousand two hundred loppers had a pivot bolt that could loosen after heavy use. Nobody was hurt.

1:53We found it ourselves, through the warranty data, before a single customer complained. We pulled the batch, we wrote to every retailer, and we replaced every unit we could trace within nineteen days. It cost us about a hundred and forty thousand dollars. It was the right call. I'd do it again, and to be fair, I'd rather not have to.

Slide 4: The recall

2:14Here's the harder part. Steel's, the steel, so... Steel has gone up twenty-three percent in two years and we have kept our prices where they were. That's why the margin slipped. I'm not going to dress that up.

Slide 5: The harder part

2:27We're going to put prices up in February, by about five percent, which is less than our costs went up. I'd rather tell you that today, tell you that today than have you hear it from a customer at a barbecue.

2:40The warehouse move to the new site on Mallee Road is still on for March. The dates are on the intranet, and the dates are the dates. Yes, the car park's bigger. Yes, there'll be a proper lunch room with more than one microwave. There'll be three. Three microwaves. I signed the order myself. I asked for a photo of them in the box, and I've got the photo, and, look, I'm not going to pretend I don't look at it sometimes. Anyway. Moving on.

Slide 6: Mallee Road, March

3:06I know that one came up at every one of the last six all-hands, and I'd like to retire the topic, if everyone's agreeable. [sighs]

3:15We're also taking on twelve new apprentices in January, which is the most we've ever had at once. One of them, I'm told, built his own forge in a shed at the age of fifteen. I don't know what to tell you about that. We've hired him.

Slide 7: Apprentices in January

3:29I want to finish with Marg from dispatch, because Marg's retiring after thirty-four years and she's specifically asked me not to make a speech about it. So I won't. I'll just say that in thirty-four years she has never once sent the wrong pallet to the wrong state, and there are Uh... airlines who'd like to know how she does it.

Slide 8: Marg, dispatch, 34 years

3:51That's it. The numbers are on the intranet, the questions are yours, and if anyone from the second row wants to come up and explain how a pair of secateurs ends up with a warranty rate of zero point three percent, the microphone's right here. Marg, you're shaking your head. I know. That wasn't a speech, that was a sentence, and a sentence is allowed. Your cake's in the lunch room. Next to the microwave. Singular. One last time. [laughs] Thanks, everyone.