Aristocrat’s David Punter on the joys and potential pitfalls of being number one slot supplier in Asia Pacific
David Punter was appointed in December to the key role of General Manager Asia Pacific for Aristocrat Technologies, the dominant supplier of slot machine technology in the regional market. Mr Punter was previously Marketing Director, Asia Pacific, for Aristocrat Technologies Australia. In his new role, he has the vital task of developing strategies to ensure the sustainable growth of Aristocrat’s regional business.
Inside Asian Gaming spoke to Mr Punter at the recent Asia’s GEM industry exhibition in Manila, and asked him about his latest role.
Inside Asian Gaming: How did you get involved in the gaming industry?
David Punter: After graduating from university in Newcastle [New South Wales] with a Bachelor’s Degree in Commerce majoring in marketing, I worked in the hotel industry, including managing the gaming room—at the time when slot machine gaming really came into the hotel industry in New South Wales.
I realised I had to get down to Sydney to create a career for myself in gaming. I was lucky enough to join Aristocrat’s sales cadet programme. About a year into that two-year programme, I was appointed marketing manager for New South Wales. It was then, and still is, a major market in Australia. It has more than 100,000 machines and is a very strong market in pubs and clubs.
I was in that post for three years, and then moved into a sales role in metropolitan Sydney working with some large clubs and hotel groups.
Aristocrat seems to be good at developing talent. Is that your experience?
I think a core strength of Aristocrat is getting their people to understand as much as they can about games, how they work and how to adapt products for players and markets. You get a really holistic view of what gaming is.
In the sales cadet programme, they threw me into divisions like marketing, finance, sales—even the manufacturing side.
The graduate programme—which we still run—is a really good way of grounding cadets who have come from university or have been in the business for a couple of years.
At the beginning of the Macau ‘Big Bang’ of market liberalisation, what were you expecting as a company from that market and the rest of Asia Pacific?
At Aristocrat we knew we had an opportunity to do well in Macau. The Asian player base had already been exposed to some Aristocrat products in the Philippines, in Singapore’s slot clubs and the Genting Highlands in Malaysia. We knew that if we did things well and worked with some very experienced and knowledgeable operators in Macau, we could build on that opportunity. We’ve delivered strong products in Cash Express® and Jackpot Carnival™.
We’ve customised those products with the Chinese language and, where we could, tailored some specific games to suit the market. Our top games in the Macau market are Choy Sun Doa™, 5 Dragons™, 50 Dragons™, 50 Lions™. And FA FA FA™ is one of our strongest links in the region.
As a result, we have been able to grow our market share in Macau to more than 50%—taking the majority of floor space in the city’s casinos.
How do you make sure you maintain that good performance?
Our staff work very closely with the operators to get to know their business. We like to celebrate our mutual success with our clients and we get excited when a new product is well accepted in a casino and performs well.
Our commitment is to make sure our games are right for the customer and the player; and that we have the right people on the ground to deliver the best product and service to our customers.
You have a lot of successful products with sticking power in Asia Pacific. How do you balance consolidating on that and at the same time innovating?
One of our key initiatives is to deliver a greater quantity of products to the Asia Pacific markets. We are focusing on how we can access a larger range now available in the US and then customise those games to suit the regions.
That doesn’t mean we take the exact same product and drop it in to the market. Others have done that and it hasn’t worked very successfully.
We’re very focused on understanding what Asian players want. As part of this work, we are hosting some seminars at G2E Asia with the key operators. They have insights on future trends in the market and valuable feedback, both of which will help us to deliver the best possible product.
We’ve already seen the benefits of this approach. A few years ago our customers told us they needed an Asian link product, so we gave them FA FA FA, configured for the regional market. The value of customer consultation was proven by the trend of other manufacturers focusing on more Asian games and Asian link products.
Of course, we want to continue to lead in the market, rather than waiting for other people to set new trends. How do we do that? Customer feedback and technology will drive our product development, including functionality, interaction with players, community gaming and other innovative approaches.
Some feedback we got from the judges in our Supplier Awards 2010 was that Aristocrat is very flexible on cost. How do you manage that without eroding your margin?
We’re very strategic on how we want to run our business, our margins and costs. Like any other business, it is a major focus. Last year, due to the economic pressures on operators caused by the global economic situation, we recognised the need for some flexibility in payment terms and pricing.
We found that a little flexibility in tough times adds to the relationship with the operator. It’s not something that you continually do in order to grind your margins down. It’s about supporting your business and supporting your customers.
How is the business turnaround programme progressing?
When new CEO Jamie Odell took the helm last February, he commissioned a comprehensive review of the Aristocrat business which included detailed analyses of company performance, internal resources, employee engagement and customer sentiment.
In August, Jamie announced details of a threeto-five-year strategy to turn around our performance by serving our customers better. The strategy is built on four clear themes that reflect the changes we will be making, as follows:
- ‘Player led, technology driven’ recognises that the winning games of the future will come from working with customers and leading edge technology.
- ‘Best games and systems’ describes our commitment to deliver tailored game content with more choices that work for players, including games tailored for the Australian and New Zealand markets.
- ‘Right markets, right segments’ means taking a more structured approach to decisions around the markets and segments we serve.
- ‘World class organisation’ is all about building a lean and effective Aristocrat, with the right behaviours and capabilities to ensure we succeed.
We are still in the early stages of our three- to five-year turnaround, we are making important and steady progress across the breadth of our strategic change agenda. We have clear performance benchmarks in place at all levels of the organisation and are progressing to plan.
Do you change the maths of the game from one market to another?
Maths is one of our core strengths and we do not tend to change it too much from one market to another. We have some great games designers and patented maths models, including Reel Power™ and Hyperlink®, which we leverage for individual markets.
What are Aristocrat’s plans for Asia Pacific for the rest of 2010?
We’re focused on structuring our business in Asia Pacific so we can deliver the best games to our customers across the region. We are ensuring we operate in the right markets and the right segments, with a strong product offering. We are developing stronger relationships with customers, whether they are in Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Macau or in other emerging markets.
We expect to release another Asian theme towards the end of the year. That’s not to say everything has to be Asian, but it’s about understanding what those customers want and then tailoring it for them. For example, it could be an existing hyperlink format, but then repackaged and badged with some new features and functionality.
There are also the fundamentals of making sure our business is sustainable for years to come and supply the best possible products that will churn.
Can you explain what you mean by ‘churn’?
Churn can simply be providing new games software in existing cabinets on the floor, without replacing the cabinet. The most important point is that players like to see something new and fresh on the floors that’s interesting and entertaining and creates some new product variety. If you have the right basic product and game, you can expand on that platform and drive player demand. That’s something casinos want.
It makes good business sense to make sure you have the right mix of product on the floor to create more revenue for the operator. Even a couple of dollars a day per machine across a lot of machines all adds up very quickly.
One of our core focuses is to have the best games and systems. Once you have the best games, the best systems, the best people and strategy, you have the basis for a successful business. If we can deliver on most of our customers’ requirements and drive product and technologies in line with player requirements, it’s a win-win situation.
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