By Claire Reilly
The newly-merged national Retravision company will be run from Perth, effective immediately, and due to the “removal of process duplications” across the three branches, the company will be forced to make “many” of its existing employees redundant.
According to a letter obtained by Current.com.au and signed by Retravision National CEO Paul Holt, a meeting of the company’s ‘Unification Committee’ was held on Tuesday (31 January 2012) at which “a number of key initiatives and outcomes were agreed in order to progress to a fully unified organisation,” according to the letter, which was marked ‘Private and Confidential’.
A Retravision employee confirmed the changes were to take place and that staff of the company were notified today.
The outcomes of the meeting "included a key decision to commence immediately integrating the three regional offices into one location through a shared services arrangement consisting of all the administrative and sales and marketing support services to the Retravision Stores across all regions,” wrote Holt.
“The National office will be headquartered in Perth and we will be immediately commencing the integration of the Retravision Northern Regional office functions into the Perth Office, followed shortly thereafter by the Retravision Southern Regional Office.
“Importantly, the move to a shared services arrangement will allow us to unlock a significant cost benefit to the business through the removal of process duplications that currently exist across the three regions.”
As a result, Holt confirmed that the newly-united Retravision Australia Ltd, as it will be known, would be shedding staff.
Click here to sign up for our FREE daily newsletter
Follow Current.com.au on Twitter
“Unfortunately, our decision will mean that over the coming months, as we relocate the Retravision Northern and Southern administrative, sales and marketing functions into the National (Perth) office, we will need to say farewell to many existing regional office employees, all of whom have provided great support and service to our stores, suppliers and directors over many years.”
“Staff meetings have been held in the three regional offices this morning to advise our teams of these outcomes and my sincere thanks and best wishes go to all of our people who will be affected by this difficult but extremely important business decision.”
Although Retravision Australia’s operations will almost all be run out of Perth, there will still be an administrative presence in other cities.
“The locally based Retail Operation Teams and RMS IT Support Teams will continue to retain a presence in each of the regional offices, in order to maintain regionally based support to our Dealer Network,” informed Holt.
“The proposed online business, Retravision Direct, will also continue and be housed in Melbourne.”
Holt confirmed that the company would be holding a series of Chairman and CEO Dealer Briefings throughout February.
These “extremely important meetings” – which are to be attended by Holt and Retravision national chairman Ian Ray – have been set up to offer members “an update on progress, the proposed steps to bring about a successful merger and most importantly to allow you [Retravision members] to pose any questions you may have”.
Current.com.au has contacted all the individuals named in this story for comment.