Over the past two years, Thorn has instituted a review of the way it does business. In particular this has focused on how we can help our people give customers the best service. This has ranged across many aspects of how we relate to customers, in consumer leasing and business finance, and we have called the program "raising the bar" which is the theme for this year’s Annual Report.
Raising the bar relates to how we apply our values and how we utilise technology to ensure we are meeting our commitments to customers. By raising the bar we want to ensure all our practices are of the highest standard. In this way, we ensure we are giving customers the best deal in meeting their needs and increasing the opportunity for our people to feel good about the services we provide.
In consumer leasing, as well as being the market leader in size, we are striving for leadership in the pricing we apply and in ensuring we are providing goods in line with people’s capacity to pay. Our pricing is highly competitive and we are now providing a wider range of goods for a broader demographic group. The look of our stores is also changing, with newer outlets in shopping centres making people realise that consumer leasing might be a new way of accessing household goods.
In business finance, we are also raising the bar in terms of credit quality, speed of decision making and applying a broader business understanding to the needs of small business customers. We provide finance that is not easy to obtain in today’s market, such as equipment leasing and cash flow and franchise financing. By appreciating how small businesses operate and how we can help them, we are creating a superior operating practice that underlies our growth.
