“TCS John Huxley offers one of the most diverse and high quality product portfolios”

What does this appointment as CEO for the Americas represent for you Career?
Taking on the role of CEO of the Americas for TCS John Huxley is very exciting for me. The company has a strong reputation for world-class gaming products and I am very lucky that I inherited a team that has a deep knowledge of the business and their customers.  

The opportunity to head up the Americas and grow our market share is very appealing. My biggest strength is getting teams focused on common goals and moving forward I have led teams before in regions and markets throughout the US, so taking on the extra geography of Canada, Central and South America plays well to my skill set.

What are your objectives for your first year of tenure?
I am focusing on 4 key areas: Customers, People, Processes and Products.

I am traveling as much as I can right now to meet as many customers as possible. No two customers have the same needs and every time I walk a casino floor I see something new. Each of the regions we cover are uniquely different. Working with the Lottery commissions in Canada is different from the States, the Islands and Latin and South America - they all have slightly differing needs. The feedback I’ve received from speaking with customers helps us improve on efficiencies and how to make our products better for them.  

I am also spending a lot of time with our people here at TCS John Huxley. As I said before, we have a great team and right now we are focused on ensuring we have the right people with the right skill sets to take our business forward and make it more successful. We are customer focused and committed so we are expanding our team to provide the right local support.

We are reviewing our internal processes and systems, which will give us additional controls and efficiencies that will allow us to manage the business in a more data driven way and provide our customers with faster turnaround times on product and service.

On a global level, we have completed a review of our product portfolio and analysed our strengths and weaknesses. We have split our portfolio into traditional and technical products as we are one of the few companies that offer products across both segments from tables, displays, cards, chips, chippers to table bonusing and real-time game optimization systems. In the Americas our core products are wheels, tables, chippers and displays and we are putting a large emphasis on making sure we remain the leader in this market.  At the same time, we are developing new products in house to compliment what we do.

The last and perhaps most important product we are focusing on is service. My team knows this is my biggest focus. We must go above and beyond to deliver extraordinary service on all of our products. We want our customers to consider us the best service company in the business. We work on this every day.

Which are TCS John Huxley’s main markets within the Americas? Where does the brand is more established and recognized? What country do you find more difficult to arrive with your products?
We have achieved considerable success in many of the regions in our territory. Our wheels and chippers are very well known in the Americas, and I would say we are the market leader in most of the countries that we sell into.  

Prior to the recent troubles in the Mexican market, we had seen growth towards live table gaming and had been successful in supplying our general portfolio of live table equipment to a variety of projects. Obviously the last couple of years have been challenging in this region, but we remain hopeful that the Mexican market will re-emerge.

What products are you promoting this year?
Beyond our core products Electronic Terminal Games are growing in popularity and we will continue to focus on developing the market across the US and Canada.   We are also very excited about our Supernova Table Bonus System.  We’ve had tremendous success with this product in South Africa and are currently on trial in Central and South America with initial feedback showing operators like the flexibility of the system, and more importantly the impact to the bottom line.

What differential do you have to offer to operators and players?
We offer one of the most diverse and high quality product portfolios covering traditional and technical solutions, along with an extremely experienced and knowledgeable team. We believe this gives us a compelling story for our customers.  We’re customer focused and committed and this is key to what operators are looking for in a vendor partnership.

What is the firm show calendar for the coming months?
We will be at the Peru Gaming Show in Lima, SAGSE in Buenos Aires and of course G2E in Las Vegas. I personally am looking forward to meeting as many of our customers as I can at these shows.