The day after talking to Alan there was a SuperBurger board meeting. Jinnie set off very early for Crawley, she wanted to spend some time in the DKL office before the noon SuperBurger board meeting and to avoid the worst of the M25 traffic. Before leaving she put her head around first Millie and then Willie’s bedroom doors. Both were sleeping soundly and her eye fell on the copy of ‘The Enchanted Wood’, the first of the Faraway Tree books. It was an old copy and not a modern version where some names had been changed to make it more up to date. She had managed to eventually find all four of the books, but an original version of the last book ‘The Magic Faraway Tree’ had proved the most difficult.
Jinnie had been delighted when the twins had read the first chapter between them, with a little help, and had settled down to sleep saying they liked the new story. Jinnie had decided to look for some other books she had enjoyed as a child starting with the Adventure series, the Famous Five and the Secret Seven. Then there was the Lone Pine series by Malcolm Saville, and maybe even The Borrowers, she had loved that series. She was really looking forward to first finding the books and then reading them again with the twins. As she headed for her Lexus, she wondered what Miss Evans would say when they told her what they were reading, and they were certain to tell her.
Before six am the M25 wasn’t too busy, and she made good progress arriving at DKL’s offices before seven just as the Manor Royal Estate was starting to wake up. As she turned off Manor Royal into the road that led to the DKL carpark at the rear of the building she saw the burger van. Knowing it was too early even for Ro to have the coffee on, she joined the short queue and purchased a tea and a giant fried egg and sausage bap with brown sauce. As she stood waiting for it to be put together, she watched carefully as nearly everyone had some combination of fried eggs, bacon or sausages in a bap or a crusty bread sandwich. But what surprised Jinnie was the number who had a burger for breakfast, some with a fried egg but all with fried onions that smelled wonderful, even at that time of the morning.
Jinnie let herself into the office building and headed for her office to eat her breakfast. She turned on her computer, started up Ro’s coffee machine and sat down to enjoy her breakfast and check her inbox. As she tucked into the delicious Bap, it struck her that this was something SuperBurger could easily do. They didn’t open until 10:00 and missed out on the breakfast trade. Her report to the board on business improvement was on her iPad and she had a dozen copies printed out to give to her fellow directors.
Quickly Jinnie pulled out her iPad and edited her report adding a section on opening earlier and serving breakfast baps. They already sold bacon burgers, and egg burgers so the only new item was pork sausages. She had just finished her report for the second time when Ro arrived a good hour before her official start time. Jinnie couldn’t help noticing she was carrying a bacon bap. Ro said, “Morning boss, you are in very early, but I’m delighted to not have to wait for my coffee this morning, do you want one?” “Yes, please,” answered Jinnie. “Why not join me while you eat your breakfast, and you can get me up to date with the gossip.”
While Ro was pouring the coffee, Jinnie reread the added section of her report but felt she had seen something at the burger van that she had forgotten to include but couldn’t remember what it was. Ro appeared with the coffee and her bap and said, “I feel a bit embarrassed to be eating this while you are just having a coffee.” “No problem,” said Jinnie, “I stopped on the way in and got my breakfast and I’ve already eaten it.” “Don’t tell me you had a burger with fried onions,” replied Ro. “No, I had an egg and sausage bap, and it was fabulous. In fact, it made me think about the SuperBurger and how they are missing out on the breakfast market, so I have been altering my report.”
“Now I have to alter it again,” continued Jinnie. “You just inadvertently reminded me I had missed something. I think they should be offering fried onions with a burger as an alternative to or an addition to salad. I saw it at the van his morning and it reminded me of when my parents used to take us girls to Barnet Fair and on the way home there were vans selling fish & chips and others selling burgers with fried onions. Mum and Dad always had fish & chips with a huge pickled onion, but my sister and I always had a burger and fried onions, nobody served salad in those days.”
Ro told Jinnie all the office gossip, apparently two people in sales were having an affair but as they were both single no one was bothered. The office football team looked like being runners-up in their league and gaining promotion. Jed’s new deputy had settled in well and seemed to be well-liked. Sally in accounts had a baby boy and had plans to only take a month’s maternity leave as her mum was a registered childminder and would be looking after her grandson.
Ro went off to sort the morning mail and Jinnie added a bit to her report about fried onions, read it through and sent it to the printer. She had started on her emails when she heard a tap on her door and looking up saw Brian, who walked in and closed the door behind him. Brian said, “Morning Jinnie, whatever time did you leave home this morning?” Very early,” replied Jinnie. Brian then said, “I hope you don’t mind but I want to talk about your plans for a new Ennios. I know it’s not DKL business but officially we have ten minutes before the working day starts.”
“Go on,” said Jinnie. “Belinda told me all about your trip last night,” Brian continued. “I like the idea and I’m certain we need to expand the Ennios chain, one hotel just doesn’t hack it in the hotel world. We need to expand to get the economy of scale, but I’m bothered we are stretching ourselves too thin. We are looking at a load of projects; Trinidad, Antigua, Jamaica, South Coast Fried Chicken and now Canada. I think we can just about manage these without borrowing, but the new Ennios is a step too far with internal funds. If we want to proceed with the project I will have to talk to the bank.”
“I understand,” said Jinnie, “but that won’t be necessary. I’m happy to put in the whole project cost as an interest-free director’s loan.” “What?” said Brian. “That would be about £6 million. What with your new house in Barbados, the extension on your Hadley house and your investment in SuperBurger, can you afford it?” “Easily,” answered Jinnie? “I told you I had inherited the SuperBurger share, but that was only a part of it. I inherited over £92 million in cash and shares.” “Gosh,” said Brian, “the Inheritance Tax on that is frightening!” “Not really,” replied Jinnie, “that is after tax and all deductions. The cash part is in a special savings account, and I can draw on it at any time and that is about half the inheritance although I have spent a bit of the cash on the houses, and a few other things. Mind, the shares have already gone up and I have set it up to reinvest dividends.”
“Wow,” said Brian, “that’s just crazy but remember you will have to pay tax on the dividends and interest on the cash.” “My advisor has already warned me about that, but Paolo and I already had a complicated tax situation before this inheritance, I have salaries from several U.K. companies for my directorships and now I sit on several overseas boards and have holdings in Trattoria Trevi that pay good dividends. All this is too much for me to sort out with HMRC. Paolo is paid half his salary in Italy and half here and he seems to get an enormous amount in expenses and being employed by the Italian state, he officially pays Italian tax and has investments in Italy, but he was being chased by HMRC as we have a couple of joint accounts. So some years ago we hired accountants to look after all of our tax affairs. We pay them quite a lot and still pay a load in tax, but at least we don’t get hassled all the time by the Revenue. Now, if you sort out the loan agreement, I’ll sign it and write the cheque, let’s say for £6 million, so the company can afford to do everything without worrying about money. I don’t want to be paid interest, I’m pretty sure this money will make the company a big return and I’ll get bigger dividends.”
***
Sir Percy opened the SuperBurger board meeting and referred everyone to the printed agenda on the table in front of each place. He said instead of going through the normal fortnightly departmental reports for this meeting, he would only be asking the financial director and the sales director to give their normal report before asking directors for their ideas on rejuvenating the business, the speaking order was on the agenda. Jinnie glanced down at the document and was hardly surprised to see she was last to speak, and the HR director wasn’t there at all.
First up the sales director reported that overall sales in the last fortnight had been slightly down but the decline was not quite so bad as the fortnight before. He pointed out that he had been carefully monitoring sales in the six branches that were testing the new coffee blend. They had unanimously increased sales, bucking the general trend within the company. Sir Percy asked if the sales increase could be for any reason other than the change of coffee blend and the sales director replied if it was he couldn’t see what it might be. The branches in the trial had been selected as being perfectly average branches and representative of the chain. Jinnie was inwardly delighted but didn’t say a word.
Next up was the finance director who reported that his worry that increased sales of coffee, if they could be achieved, wouldn’t exceed the extra cost of the new blend, had been completely unfounded. The coffee seemed to have encouraged better food sales in the six branches and they had managed to increase profits over the fortnight while no other branch had achieved this in the same period. Jinnie was itching to suggest the new coffee should be rolled out to the whole chain but held back to see who else was on her side and would point out the obvious.
Sir Percy asked if anyone had any comment on the reports and the first person to be brave enough to speak up was the HR Director, who Jinnie was coming to realise was not quite the ‘mouse’ she had been told. She pointed out that these results just couldn’t be coincidence, the six branches were all in different parts of the country and had been chosen to be typical. In her opinion the new blend should be rolled out everywhere. Jinnie decided it was time to join in and said she agreed with the general conclusion but wondered if rolling out the new coffee now was the right thing to do. Would it not be better to wait and see what was decided to do to rejuvenate the chain and ‘reboot’ everything together? From the corner of her eye, she could see Sir Percy nodding along as she spoke.
Sir Percy said, “I totally agree with the ladies, we obviously need to roll out the coffee but to roll it out separately to a full reboot could be wasteful. If we go for an advertising programme it clearly needs to be a total reboot. Now let’s hear your ideas in the order on the agenda. We can have a discussion at the end of the presentations and decide how to proceed.”
Jinnie sat back and listened. Much as she had expected everyone had concentrated on the product. Directors had been talking to suppliers and several had samples brought in from the ante room. A change to a brioche bun was suggested by several directors. Different suppliers quarter pound burgers patties were championed by different directors. But after tasting the one made from best British beef there was a clear winner with Jinnie. It had been found by the marketing director who said the supplier was currently asking 2p a pattie more than they were currently paying, but he was certain if they were to contract them for the whole chain, they could be purchased at the same price they were currently paying.
It was finally Jinnie’s turn. She started by saying, “I guessed that most of you would concentrate on the product, so not being an expert in beef burgers, chicken burgers and wraps, I decided to concentrate on what I do know about selling, marketing and advertising. Firstly, the restaurants are dull and uninviting, we need to commission someone to restyle our branches, we need a new colour scheme in brighter colours. At the same time, we need to look at the print font we are using. The current one is old fashioned, we need to find a new modern one for everything from menus to advertising.”
“Talking about menus,” continued Jinnie, “nearly every fast-food place I can think of has laminated menus on the tables that have pictures of the item next to its description and price, we don’t. A trick I learned from someone with a degree in marketing was to put expensive items high on the menu, some people don’t read any further than the first few items. We did it with the more expensive, but high profit, fried shrimp on a menu in Barbados and sales jumped 50%.”
Jinnie went on, “When we have decided on our new colour scheme, font, and food offering, we need to roll it out to a dozen outlets in the new format. At the same time, we roll out the revised menu to every branch. We have a massive relaunch with radio and TV adverts, filmed in a newly refurbished branch with people eating from the new menu. We tell people the revised menu is available today; the new decor is being progressively rolled out to every branch. Oh, I will say one thing about the menu, and this is my personal opinion, I haven’t done opinion polling, but please can we offer a pile of fried onions on our burgers either as an alternative to salad or in addition to it. Why did we ever stop offering it?”
“Now I know what the argument against my suggestions is going to be,” said Jinnie, “someone is going to say, ‘it’s going to cost a lot of money’. Well, so it might do. But we are sitting on a cash pile, so we have the money available. If we spend some of it we have an excellent chance of rejuvenating our business, but if we don’t someone will buy us and assist strip us.” Jinnie passed out copies of her presentation while saying, “This document is an expanded version of the summary I have just given you. I have looked at some rough costings, and made some colour schemes and font suggestions. I have suggested some refurbishment/fit-out companies including one owned by DKL our 50% owned subsidiary. If we use them and they make a profit, we benefit from them contributing increased dividends to DKL’s coffers. They also have some very talented designers, perhaps we should ask them to suggest a fresh look to the branches?” With that she sat down.
Sir Percy said, “Thank you everyone, I enjoyed that. Now let me quickly give you what I have learned. Yes, the food offering needs revitalising and I have enjoyed trying some items, not so much, others. I particularly liked the British beef pattie. I’m sure you’ll all agree the new coffee blend is a given and I absolutely agree with Jinnie, we don’t just need to refresh the menu, the outlets desperately need a refresh as well, and we need to tell people what we are doing. We do have the money and I want to grow the business, not reign over its demise. Oh, and why didn’t someone tell me we had an interest in a refurbishment contractor?”
The discussion rumbled on for nearly 30 minutes before Sir Percy looked at his watch and said, “It’s lunchtime, so here’s what I have recorded we have agreed on; new burgers, new buns, new nuggets, new raps and new coffee. New breakfast rolls, new early opening times and to follow Jinnie’s ideas regarding refurbishments and restyling. Now I think all of you know what you are doing so let’s get these new supply contracts sorted. Now, as for the refurbishment contractor, Jinnie, can you put procurement in touch with your man?” Jinnie chuckled and said, “Of course, but it’s a woman. Knowing Belinda as well as I do and how busy she is now I can’t guarantee she will be able to provide some input for the next board meeting, but I know she will do her utmost. One thing though, did you forget the fried onions?” “No,” said a laughing Sir Percy, “I too love a burger with a load of fried onions, it’s a must for the new menu.”
***
After a quick buffet lunch, Jinnie drove over to Belinda’s offices and was delighted to see her car parked outside. She was buzzed in and met by a new girl Jinnie had never seen before, who led her to Belinda’s office past several people who said “Hello” to her as she walked through the office. As Jinnie approached Belinda’s office she waved to her and indicated a visitor chair and said, “This is an unexpected visit, what can I do for you?” Jinnie replied, “It’s a bit of a story, but I’ve just come from a SuperBurger board meeting, and I’ve been asked to put you in touch with their procurement director.”
“Really?” said Belinda, “Do they want their offices refurbished.” “No, it’s a lot bigger than that. Are Andrew and Willow around?” asked Jinnie. “I think their talents might be needed.” “They’re in the design office,” replied Belinda. “This office is a bit small, so I think I’ll ask them to join us in the client meeting room downstairs.” A few minutes later they were all gathered in the fancy glass meeting room with the huge TV, the boardroom table and cupboards holding samples. Jinnie said to Andrew, “I thought you worked just outside this office?” “Not anymore,” answered Andrew. “About a month ago we had the chance to buy another unit so we now have four together.” Belinda said, “We have had so much work recently we have been hiring more staff and it was getting a bit tight. When the insurance brokers who had the unit, moved to a new office in the middle of Crawley, I snapped it up. We have expanded into the space and now have more space if we land another big job.”
Jinnie said, “I’m pleased you have spare capacity, you might need it. Now let me explain, I have just come from a SuperBurger board meeting where we agreed to launch a refurbishments programme that will include all 900+ U.K. branches. Initially, we will be doing up 12 to be a selection around the country. This is just front of house, the kitchens and staff rooms etc are ok. But the problem is it’s a design job as well. We want a corporate refresh, colour scheme, typeface, menus, even condiment holders. All to be in new a fresh, modern colour scheme. I have been asked to get you to contact the procurement director ASAP.”
Jinnie continued, “It will be a huge opportunity, get in on that first 12 and it’s almost certain the full 900 will be yours. The board had no idea you were a DKL company and consequently connected to SuperBurger until I told them. I suggest you call Carl this afternoon. He can tell you the twelve, I wouldn’t mind betting that the Crawley branch is one. So you can get in and measure up quickly. Show Carl a rendered image in the new colours and the signage in the new font and I think the job will be yours.”
“Golly, that’s a lot of work,” said Belinda. “Do you know if it includes flooring, furniture and lighting?” “I don’t really know,” said Belinda. “I suggest you ring Carl and ask.” Belinda said, “Hang on and I’ll ring him now and get the guidance.” Jinnie passed Belinda a slip of paper with Carl’s number on it and she dialled it. Although she could only hear Belinda’s end of the conversation she gathered that the call was well received and she watched as Belinda wrote Crawley on her pad and underlined it three times. She then wrote, ‘Paint in new colours’, ‘Bright’, ‘Light’, ‘Modern’, ‘New Font’, ‘Floor matching colours’, ‘New signage’, ‘Furniture in corporate colours’, ‘17:00’, ‘Tuesday 10am’.
Belinda finished the call and put the phone on her desk before saying, “Carl wants to meet me at 17:00 in the Crawley branch so we can measure up. He says he knows he’s asking a lot but he’d like to see some ideas in his office at 10 on Tuesday morning.” Turning to Andrew and Willow she said, “You two are working on the Ennios Bournemouth project, can we drop it for a few days and get you on this?” “That’s easily done,” replied Andrew. “The ‘drawings of each floor’ the agent sent over are actually 2D sections through a 3D AutoCAD architecture model that have been annotated. We were just looking at it when you called. I don’t know who built the model but it has been meticulously constructed with loads of layers with services on each. We have layers for everything, air conditioning, small power, fire alarms, plumbing, lighting, heating, carpets, signage, etc. Every item has a unique identifier and description attached, so by interrogating the model, I could, say, find the size, maker, model and heat output of any radiator I clicked on. I can also run a report and get a list of every radiator in the building grouped by size or maker or heat output. It is far more of an advanced model than we ever construct, a Building Information Model, and it was probably built by whomever was maintaining the building from the original architect’s model. It would take us months to generate such a thing, but with it I can click on a room and get an instant list of its size, fixtures and fittings.”
“Now we have it, it is easy to change,” continued Andrew. “I could, say, replace one type of plug socket with a different one and it would ripple through all the 2D drawings that have been set up. As well as the floor plans, sections have been set up to give internal and external elevations. It really is going to make the project easy and I suspect the estimating people will love all the schedules we can extract from the BIM, it’s going to make the costing simple. We left Clive playing with the model and learning how to edit it. Maggie has already found items already have materials attached, so rendered images should be simple.”
“Do you think the estate agent or the vendor had any idea they had a BIM model?” asked Belinda. “I very much doubt it,” replied Andrew. “I think the hotel’s plant maintenance manager, or similar, has spent all his idle hours perfecting the model so that he knew instantly what anything that failed and needed replacing was. I have heard of architect’s with teams of CAD operators doing similar things for new buildings and then selling the resulting model to the client. In this case, I just don’t think they know what they have got.” “And I don’t intend telling them,” said Belinda.
***
The following Monday, Jinnie entered the MI6 building at Vauxhall Cross, and after showing her staff pass the receptionist told her to pass through the turnstile and head up to the executive floor where she would be met. The lift doors slid open revealing Alan’s PA who said, “Good morning Dame Jinnie, we are meeting in the boardroom today. Nearly everyone is already there, ‘C’ has just finished a pre-meeting and it’s only those who are only at the main meeting we are waiting for. If you would like to follow me, and please have your pass ready there is security on the corridor.”
Jinnie’s pass was inspected before she was allowed to even approach the boardroom where she had to use her pass to open the door. Once inside she took in the crowd gathered around the huge boardroom table, many in uniform and some she recognised like ‘C’, the PM and the defence secretary and the Italian ambassador. There were British military and naval uniforms, an American uniform and Italian uniforms. Alan saw her and called her over to a spare seat next to the PM. As she said ‘Good morning’ to the PM out of the corner of her eye she spotted her sister enter the room and be directed to the seat on the other side of her to the PM.
Penny whispered in Jinnie’s ear, “What’s going on?” and Jinnie replied, “I haven’t the foggiest, I only got here two minutes before you.” The last two people to enter the room were two men in the uniform of the Gruppo Di Intervento Speciale (GIS), which Jinnie knew was the Italian counter-terrorism force that specialised in marksmanship. Jinnie remembered Alan saying the job needed her special talent; it must be speaking Italian. Alan called the meeting to order and asked for the door to be secured.
‘C’ said, “For those of you who weren’t in the pre-meeting, I’ll briefly describe want we were discussing and what we have agreed as it will affect you. For years now Italy has been suffering from a huge influx of illegal immigrants crossing the Mediterranean from Africa in small boats. Last year it was nearly 200,000 and this year is currently running at a higher level. In recent months the Italians have been finding that the Germans have been mixing agents in with the immigrants and they have arrested over 100 this year alone. Our intelligence believes that this is all associated with the current raised tensions between Germany and Russia.”
‘C’ continued, “Since liberation from Germany, Italy has good relations with Russia and their citizens can travel to Russia with few restrictions. It is our belief that Germany is trying to insert its agents first into Italy so they can get simple access to Russia. We have been discussing how to stop this movement and what has been decided is that we need first to stop the immigrants at source. The inflatable boats they use depart from Tunisia and aim for Lampedusa Island, an Italian island in the middle of the Mediterranean. What we have been discussing is a joint mission to stop the boats from leaving the Tunisian coast.”
The Italian Ambassador took up the story, speaking in his excellent English he said, “While we are hunting down the agents we are now certain have slipped past our controls, we set about identifying the launch beaches in Tunisia. We now know where they are coming from but the gangs control the area around the beaches with heavily armed guards. The Tunisians will do nothing to help, they are only too happy to get the immigrants out of the country and the gangs have paid off anyone local who they need to.”
The PM spoke next, “The Italian Ambassador asked for our assistance in a plan they have developed. The idea is to use snipers to punch holes in the rubber boats before they get in the sea from long distance. For that they need the best possible marksmen or in this case markswoman. They have already recruited someone you both know, Irena Hodžová from Slovakia. I understand they approached her in her capacity of a senior officer in their military hoping to borrow one of her snipers but she said she was up for it and asked if had they approached Penny who was the finest marksman she had ever met. Then the ambassador asked for the loan of Penny as she had a reputation. However ‘C” said although she was an excellent shot, her sister was even better. Hence why you are both here. When Alan started looking at the mission he started asking questions hence the presence of the US military attache here today. They will be bringing several things to the party. Firstly, a nuclear submarine to insert the party, then reconnaissance drones and special explosive ammunition. The Italians will be supplying the protection force from GOI and the spotters for the shooters, and Slovenia and us the marksmen.”
Jinnie said, “I see one small problem, it is many years since I shot over very long distances. Of course, I have shot over shorter distances but I fear I am a little rusty over what I assume are going to be really long distances.” “We have thought about that,” said ‘C’. “While you, your sister and Irena are busy practising at the sniper school at Warminster, Mission Planning will be sorting everything else out. Your three-day refresher at Warminster starts a week on Monday.”
In Chapter 24 – SuperBurger developments
© WorthingGooner 2024
