Ahead of announcing several senior leadership appointments to support QR Nationalâs massive organistional restructure next month, the companyâs CEO Lance Hockridge had some frank words to say about the rail industryâs âinsufficient regardâ for its customers at AusRAIL PLUS 2011 last week.
By Jennifer Perry
In his address on the final day of AusRAIL PLUS 2011 in Brisbane last Thursday, Hockridge did not hold back on sharing his views on this year’s conference theme, customer relations, as it related to both the rail industry generally and the company he heads up, QR National.
“My own view is that frankly as an industry we have been beleaguered in recent times with looking too much within, and of having insufficient regard for the customer in our business,” Hockridge said.
“There is a renaissance of the customer being at the forefront of our businesses … generally though, I have to say that as much as there are those pockets of excellence I think we need to be sufficiently honest with ourselves to say that as an industry, and indeed speaking as a company, we’ve still got an awful long way to go before we would really describe ourselves as a customer friendly industry or company.
“Certainly our friends in the road industry, in my view, have benefitted from the fact that we’ve not been as customer centric as an industry as we ought to have been.”
From a QR National perspective, Hockridge said “sadly”, when he thought back to four years ago when he started with the company, not unnaturally, it was a business that was still very much a government owned business which had a “sense of entitlement”.
“… Train schedules were put together in a way that was meant to optimise the operations of the company, rather than that of the suitability that they represented for our customer base,” he shared with delegates, “Contracts didn’t share risk or incentivise high levels of performance,” he added.
“To put it mildly, not a pretty picture.”
Four years on, and Hockridge said a lot of work had gone into QR National’s relationship with its customers.
“Listening to and engaging actively with our customers and meeting their basic requirements, frankly is in my view, just the entry point into the game,” he said.
Speaking of QR National’s privatisation, some 12 months ago, Hockridge said the IPO meant the company could now focus squarely on the things that were important to the business.
“Most importantly, the customer, rather than necessarily having to always have an eye on the political and social obligations that inevitably came with government ownership,” he said.
“Hopefully [the IPO] does mean that we can now pull all the levers – and the right levers – that make the required change right across our business, and at the heart of that has to be the customer in everything we do first and foremost.”
Massive restructure
Hockridge said as QR National “looked to the future” it was focused on increasing the momentum of reform in the company.
Central to this was the company’s transition as of next month from its existing business unit model to a functional model (similar to that of the Class 1 Railroads of North America), along with several senior leadership appointments to support this transition.
Hockridge said QR National sees enormous opportunity to grow its business and the change in structure combined with the new appointments, “will provide a platform for that growth”.
“I’m confident that the new structure and the appointments that [I’m announcing] today will help accelerate the improvement of the operations and the performance of our company, but particularly reflecting back on the theme of AusRAIL PLUS – customer relations – of putting the customer squarely at the front of everything we do,” he concluded.
QR National structure
As of next month, QR National will move to its new functional model under eight functions:
- Marketing
- Operations
- Network
- Strategy and Business Development
- Business Sustainability
- Finance
- Human Resources
- Enterprise Services
New appointments
QR National has announced the following new senior leadership appointments to support the company’s transition to its new organisational structure.
Marketing
Current QR chief executive Paul Scurrah (see separate story) has been appointed as the executive vice president commercial and marketing and will have responsibility for customer and related commercial matters with the exception of the Queensland below rail matters.
The function will include key account management, commercial and planning, strategy, supply chain planning, market intelligence and customer service.
Operations
Hockridge announced that the executive previously responsible for QR National’s coal business, Marcus McAuliffe, will be leaving the company.
QR National is currently undertaking a global search for the position of executive vice president operations. In the meantime, Lindsay Cooper will act in the role from December 1 and will be responsible for operations including scheduling, service delivery, maintenance and fleet planning.
Ed McKeiver will assume the role of senior vice president service delivery coal markets. He was previously group general manager rolling stock services, and as of next month, McKeiver will assume most of the operational responsibilities previously undertaken by Marcus McAuliffe.
All other key executives in the coal part of QR National’s business will remain the same.
Chris Gregg will assume the role of senior vice president service delivery bulk
markets. Previously group general manager freight east, in his new role, Gregg
will assume most of the operational responsibilities previously undertaken by Ken Lewsey.
Strategy and Business Development
Ken Lewsey will head up the new strategy and business development function. Currently in charge of QR National Freight, Lewsey will be responsible for growing the company through enterprise strategy, business development and projects including mergers and acquisitions, solution and design support, and intermodal and iron ore.
Finance, Human Resources and Enterprise Services
Deborah O’Toole will continue to lead the finance function as chief financial
officer, John Stephens will continue to lead the human resources function as chief human resources officer, and Greg Pringle will head up the enterprise services function which includes areas such as legal, internal audit and information technology.
Network
Mike Carter will continue on in the network function which includes the operations, maintenance and expansion of the QR National rail network.
Business Sustainability
Greg Robinson, former general manager at Lysaght, the rollforming business of Bluescope Steel, joins QR National and will lead the business sustainability function.
This function will strive for best practice operations and business improvement across the organisation including areas such as safety, health and environment, procurement, innovation and capital excellence.
 
“