expressed in its product being created in multiple countries rather than from a regional office in each specific country. The Danish office, for example, having approximately five employees, has specific functions, such as new customer acquisition in Denmark. Its role is to make the product relevant and communicate it out to the Danish consumer, produce Danish sports book, and other tasks (Tony Brandenborg Interview 2013). Danish customer support is based entirely in Malta, while the organizational leadership is directed from both the Malta office and the main office in Stockholm, Sweden. The structure can be said to be rather vertical as someone always reports to someone further up in the organizational chain. Holm (2013) states, “Just like in any large organization, you can always come with suggestions, but these will be reviewed by your superiors.”
Despite being a global group, the company is predominantly Swedish, which is largely reflected in its marketing activities and organizational culture (Tony Brandenborg Interview 2013).
7.3 Strategy
Betsafe’s strategy prior to the upcoming year was focusing on the average sports fan who bets on his teams of interest during the weekend (Tony Brandenborg Interview 2013). This coming year, the Betsafe focus and strategy will be shifted to customers who represent more value in terms of amount and volume of bets. Their value is 12–15 times larger than the average sports better. These are characterized as “big players” whose needs are much more complex. The company’s focus also lies in increasing the average lifetime value of these customers. This shift in segment will help Betsafe reach its overall goal of 15 % bottom-line growth in 2014 (Tony Brandenborg Interview 2013). It is worth noticing that country managers get measured and rewarded on one single measurement, new customer acquisition. This underlines that management relies heavily on growth by acquiring market share.
7.4 Systems
This paragraph will focus on the systems used specifically for customer loyalty within the organization. The division of activities and projects is quite clear in Betsafe. The Danish Betsafe office and Marketing Director Tony Brandenborg are responsible for acquiring new customers.
Betsafe uses multiple channels and platforms to communicate its product. The marketing department has close links to the Danish media, to which Betsafe often feeds different stories of relevant bets. It also advertises on television and uses multiple website affiliates to acquire new customers. Just like many other bookmakers in the industry, Betsafe offers a cash bonus of 1000 DKK to all new customers that has to be converted on the website. The product is offered
throughout the website but can also be accessed through a smart phone or a tablet. Betsafe currently does not have a native application for its product but rather a website modified for a smart phone or tablet. Brandenborg is measured on only one target, namely how many new customers join Betsafe.
According to Brandenborg (2013), “As soon as a new customer is acquired, that task basically leaves my table and moves on to the Malta office that is responsible for retention activities.” He adds, “All retention activities happen in Malta, and often these become very generic and not specific to the Danish market, since these activities are somewhat global.” Generally, he feels that Betsafe does not do enough in terms of customer retention and loyalty (Tony Brandenborg interview 2013). Holm also supports his concern. They both believe that there is a lack of focus on customer loyalty and retention activities in the industry.
7.5 Shared Values
Betsson has a strong company culture and makes an effort to constantly improve it. This is reflected in one of Betsson’s mission statements: “We are a creative and dynamic company built by passionate employees” (Betsson Magazine 2012, p.24). As the company has chosen to “grow organically via acquisitions,” as described in its strategy (Betsson Magazine 2012), it is important for the company to keep investing in creating shared values and a strong company culture. It constantly acquires new companies to its umbrella corporation; therefore, Betsson often experiences that many employees from an old firm join the Betsson team all at once. In order to avoid cliques and internal conflicts, Betsson constantly works on creating a common Betsson culture. Every employee of Betsafe becomes a Betssonite. Betsafe is a brand of this umbrella corporation. Its individual slogan is “In it to win it” (Betsafe.com About Us 2013). Betsafe shares the missions of the Betsson Group, which include the missions “We deliver fun, fair and creative online gaming experiences to people” (Betsson Magazine 2012, p.24) and “We strive to be the best where we choose to play” (Betsson Magazine 2012, p.24). It is hard to say whether employees sitting with Betsafe see the company as an individual entity or an integrated part of the Betsson Group.
Nevertheless, a quote from a Betssonite from Malta suggests that “the company is known for its strong values, caring for its employees, and it is a company where high performers strive…”
(Betsson Magazine 2012, p.53). It could be argued that more effort is put into pleasing and integrating the employees in Malta as Betsson has an interest in reducing churn in that particular office. Employees sitting in the various regional offices might not feel a similar integration into the culture. This can be due to geographical and cultural distances.
7.6 Style
Betsafe is a data-driven company (Tony Brandenborg Interview 2013). Data is gathered about every possible aspect of the company, including customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, and customer loyalty. However, according to Brandenborg, the company is yet to use this data in an efficient way in order to make improvements. He feels that often this data is gathered and stacked in a report that is given to the CEO, but no more development work happens on the basis of these reports. This indicates a gap between the leadership of the company and the employees closer to the customer. This gap is both communicative and execution distorted, meaning that there might be distance between command given and the actions wanted from the “floor” and vice versa. The employees closest to the consumers, those who have their finger on the pulse of the consumer, might unintentionally be cut off from communicating with the leaders of the company. Despite this communication barrier, the leadership style seems to be effective as everyone within the company has relevant targets. This efficiency is reflected in the financial success of the group for the past five years (Betsson Annual Report 2012). The organization largely functions in groups, whether these are geographically placed, function-wise, or market specific. Once again, it is inevitable to have a natural division of the employees when geographical limits are in play. However, the tasks could be more efficiently divided in order to serve each geographical market a bit better. For example, a suggestion could be to move retention activities of Betsafe to the Danish office rather than keep them in Malta.
7.7 Staff
As this thesis tries to focus on a purely strategic level, the staff element goes further in-depth with specifics of employee positions and which positions need to be filled. These are deemed not relevant to the thesis, as these cover a much more practical approach and a human resource perspective. Both of these are positioned outside the spectrum and limitations of the project.
7.8 Skills
In this thesis, the skills element will focus on the skills and skill gaps of Betsafe primarily in the context of customer loyalty (Mind Tools 2014). It is clear that the strategy of Betsafe largely focuses on increasing market share through new customer acquisition. It is therefore also good at acquiring new customers; however, if only 5 % of their customers choose Betsafe as their preferred bookmaker, it has a clear problem with activating its current customer base and increasing their loyalty toward Betsafe. Brandenborg (2013) points out this weakness: “Loyalty is not our strongest
side, and this does not only apply to Betsafe, but across all our brands.” He also states, “We have a tendency to underestimate working with customer loyalty” (Tony Brandenborg Interview 2013).
The skills of the staff are monitored on a quarterly basis through KPIs such as number of new customers. None of the KPIs are focused on Betsafe’s ability to create customer loyalty or on retention rates. Several KPIs focusing specifically on customer loyalty can be suggested, such as average lifetime value compared to previous years and the loyalty profile score described in Chapter 3 of the thesis.
Betsafe as an organization is financially and culturally healthy. It has a solid organizational structure that has delivered positive financial results for many years. However, there are several elements in the firm, which are not properly aligned. These elements include a gap between the style, strategy and systems. Based on the analysis, there is a large gap between top-management and middle management where in instances the global presence of the company is hindering effective local growth. Focus on top-line growth and market share trumps focus on potential bottom-line growth through retention and customer loyalty. The interviewed employees point out this undiscovered potential along with geographical challenges. Now that an internal analysis of Betsafe has been made, an external analysis will focus on Betsafe in the context of the industry.