Into the realms of Information Technology - a prelude to Credit

I formed the opinion early on in my credit career that in order to be successful, I had to deliver tangible value-add; in other words, either delivering what was required with a degree of panache or better still, exceeding expectation with a delivery style a bit out of the ordinary, adding value to information, its content and presentation; providing management reports that were new, fresh, innovative and not singularly attractive to just one part of the business, ergo Finance.

To achieve this required a wider field of vision, an understanding of what makes a business ‘tick’, the integral composites of its constitution, its markets  and how each activity linked in or worked with others. It meant getting to know what was manufactured or sold, how, to who, and why. It needed an understanding of its management and direction, its supply chain, its markets and above all, its competition.

In construction, one has an idea, the idea is converted to a plan and a drawing and the base is a foundation. Getting that base, that platform absolutely correct, is how everything that follows falls into place.

The next four years spent in Electronic Data Processing (EDP) provided me with just such a platform and knowledge base.

Sun-up

Mercifully, having missed my first interview due to total confusion on precisely where Firestone Tyre & Rubber Company were on the Great West Road and how I should get there, I was offered a second chance and began working in the computer room in April 1970.

These were early days of mainframe computers (an IBM 360), IBM 29 card-punch machines, carbonated computer print-outs, and marking cards with special pencils. All this was totally new and bewildering at first but once into the swing I began to enjoy not only the computerisation of processes but the significant additional information that came with it.

Here, I was involved in the preparation and creation of invoices, credit notes, statements, reminders and the paraphernalia involved in Sales Ledger documentation. It extended to processing and batching cash received, bought ledger processing and supplier payments, database management, product cards and a host of added processes. Toward the latter part of my four year spell it extended to processing the manual weekly payroll for some 1,000 day and night shift manufacturing personnel and also the complexity of tyre costing, program fault finding and correction along with some basic programming.

Week payroll was a critical job that simply had to be run and completed 100% successfully on a Thursday night; this was critical to ensure no fall-out with factory staff on Friday morning’s hand out of wage packets. Firestone operated 24 hours a day with quite a sizeable night shift. They provided a second canteen in the factory for night workers although conditions in the factory, more so in the cure department, were less than palatable.  The size of the place was enormous and took in what is now a plot between PC World (Curry’s) and the Sky buildings toward Gillette corner. The rear extended all the way to include areas close to the current Centaur Business Park. 

The decades between 1930 and 1970 were heady days of tyre production and around 2,000 employees worked on the site. I didn't know at the time but I was processing my future father-in-law’s weekly factory pay packet.

Unlike the Firestone plant in Wrexham in Wales, Brentford factory buildings were dated, not well ventilated and pretty dark and dingy in many places. The company was obliged to provide on-site health checks and had a resident qualified nurse and medical building adjacent to the main office.

Working in EDP provided ample scope for overtime and income was joyfully higher than working as a lifeguard. It was also quite a young environment giving rise to great friendships and a pooled sharing of knowledge.

The way in which invoices were generated is worth some mention, if only to show early signs of computerisation. Client cards would be pre-punched with the name and address of the distributor or reseller; in those days, two of the largest I recall were Ruggles and Motorway Tyre Services. These cards would be housed in trays as would cards for each product category, again pre-punched with the product name and detail. Our job was to take the correct client card and composite product cards and on the latter using a pencil, mark the quantity and pricing. A batch of these would then be given to the card punch department who would process these where the detail marked with the pencil would be punched correctly on the cards. These would then be passed through to the computer room for processing, generally in a large metal tray. Any card reading errors would be up-turned in the batch and returned for correction and only when no errors were noted and batch values reconciled would the invoices be finally generated.

Invoices, like all print outs were on carbonated stationery that necessitated decollating, trimming and bursting. This was done in a room adjacent to the computer -room by two separate machines. A decollating machine separated the carbon, leaving the required number of invoice copy documents while a trimming and bursting machine (a beast of a machine, noisy and incredibly dirty,) separated the invoices and trimmed the perforated edges. A face mask and ear-plugs were certainly advisable when operating these machines in a closed and confined space.

It was a terrific education in receivables, payments, finance, production, sales, manufacturing, information technology, marketing and payroll, all the essential operational blocks of a corporate body. I became aware of what they entailed and how they worked with each other.

Few companies on that stretch of the Great West Road were computerised to the same extent although we did occasionally share the computer facilities of the Rank Organisation which was at the time based in Whyteleafe, Surrey. The Rank Organisation included Rank Audio Visual which also operated from premises the Great West Road. This was demolished when Rank vacated in the late 80’s and the plot, alongside that of Trico-Folberth, now houses the corporate HQ of Glaxo Smith Kline (GSK).

By late 1973 and early 1974, pressure from new entrants in tyre manufacture, increased manufacturing costs and pressured gross margin forced a radical corporate review of people, plant and locations. There was an undeniably strong case for slowly moving production away certainly from the location in Brentford to the cleaner and more efficient Welsh factory and by the beginning of 1974, signs were certainly more obvious.

 Here, I guess, were early days of recognizing growing risk and future paths. By 1979, Firestone was haemorrhaging money and shut down many of its manufacturing operations including those in Brentford and Wrexham. In the late 80’s it was sold to the Japanese company Bridgestone. The ‘Art-Deco’ and protected building frontage was mysteriously knocked down during a bank holiday weekend and all that remains now are the brick wall, railings and two gates.

By February 1974 I had begun to look at alternatives and the close working relationship with the Rank Organisation in all matters computing provided the next opportunity. It was here that I moved into a more defined and recognised Credit function after a brief spell managing and correcting a number or errors in Sales ledger routines and data processing. Conveniently, some two years earlier in 1972, I met my now wife who worked in their finance division, operating in those days some clunky noisy Burroughs machines.

To be continued…….

Next episode: Sales Ledger Management & Credit - (High Noon).