Getting close to the customer

As a manager at Reuters I always felt strongly that the sales and support teams must be close to the customers. This was reflected in our structure in the 1980s and 90s where our business units were where the clients were located. An example were the business units in New York where we had two business units, uptown and downtown, where our clients were. During that time our sales were growing at tremendous rates and client satisfaction was high. It allowed for the sales teams to be "pro-active". Restructure after restructure changed all that.

Centralized structures might be good for some businesses but not for our business model [Thomson Reuters downsizes EMEA region HQ].​ ■