Connect Bidco Limited is a Guernsey incorporated entity with a registered establishment in England and Wales. As a Guernsey incorporated entity, we are not required to make a section 172 statement however, we have chosen to do so in line with best practice and our Corporate Governance Policy.
Section 172 of the Companies Act 2006 requires the Directors to take into consideration the interests of stakeholders in their decision making. The Directors have regard to the interests of our Company employees and other stakeholders, including our impact in the community, the environment and our reputation, when making their decisions. The Directors consider what is likely to promote the success of the Company for our members in the long-term in all their decision making.
This statement should be read in conjunction with the stakeholder statement.
Stakeholder | Why we engage | How we engage |
---|---|---|
Employees | We rely on the knowhow, creativity and entrepreneurial spirit of all our people. New and existing talent is attracted and retained by organisations that share insight and provide development opportunities within an inclusive culture. We recognise we need the best teams to be engaged and to collaborate if we are to achieve our purpose together. We recognise that want to have a culture that fosters strong values and an environment of support for them as individuals and where we encourage our employees to bring their 'whole self to work'. |
The Board engages with employees, principally through our Global Workforce Advisory Panel (GWAP) – a body set up in line with requirements outlined in the updated Financial Reporting Council’s UK Corporate Governance Code. The GWAP is made up of 15 employee representatives from across our global footprint, supported by additional ‘Voice Champions’ in smaller offices. The primary purpose of the group is to promote an effective two-way communications mechanism between the workforce and the management team, by capturing the views of employees on proposals and issues which affect our people, recognising barriers and enablers and helping to address them. In December 2020 we hosted a ‘Voice Week’, with a focus on seeking feedback on our proposed new ways of working. This serves to promote the profile of the GWAP and encourages employees to raise views through the appropriate channels. The GWAP promotes a culture of collaboration and high performance, and consults on and provides advice, support and feedback during the implementation of programmes and policies. We have formally consulted employee bodies who are regularly engaged on consultative requirements. In terms of wider employee engagement programmes our CEO has oversight and delegated responsibility for all other activity through the Chief People Officer, who through the People Strategy, oversees a proactive communications and engagement programme, supporting open and honest dialogue with the global workforce and other formal global staff bodies. Regular Board papers concerning employee engagement were prepared for the Board, and more frequently during the pandemic period. The CEO through the Chief People Officer made our people a focus in 2020, which is ongoing in 2021, to ensure a global programme of wellbeing and IT support, to enable the efficient working from home, was available for them throughout the Covid-19 period. Our employee engagement scores have increased over 2019 and employee feedback on specific questions relating to their wellbeing was very positive. An outcome of our employee engagement is that we are reviewing flexible working arrangements for our employees globally. We hope to offer our employees the choice to work from home or the office permanently or an option to select from a range of hybrid solutions. Employee feedback also noted employees were suffering 'meeting fatigue' due to the high volume of meetings attended during the day as a result of home working. We recently trialled 'no meeting Friday's' during the month of February and have implemented meeting archetypes to change meeting culture to work more successfully from home. |
Customers | By working collaboratively with our customers, we develop innovative solutions to meet consumer needs. By sharing market insight with customers, we identify further opportunities together to increase revenues. We recognise that our service is mission critical to our customers and the reliability of our service is essential for them. |
The Board engages with customers through the CEO and receives regular information about customers in Board reports and other business reports. All significant or material contracts that are classed as Principal Decisions are approved at Board level. We seek customer feedback on a range of issues such as customer service, new products and pricing. This is done through various methods such as surveys and focus groups. We launched the first of our annual market wide customer feedback surveys in 2019 to initiate what we expected to be a productive and ongoing dialogue. Our latest survey in 2020 saw an increase of over 300% in the responses received and provided even more insightful observations which added great value to the customer experience feedback we gain from our regular customer interactions. We saw an increase in both the Net Promotor Score and Customer Satisfaction scores which form an underpinning part of our customer experience measurement framework. Customers told us that they appreciate and value our global network coverage and reliability. They also said there are ways we could do more to simplify how we do business, such as increasing the self-service capability in the systems that they interface with. All the feedback received is helping us drive further improvements through our customer experience programme. The ongoing dialogue is increasing our understanding of what matters most to those who rely on our services. |
Partners | We recognise that a collaborative approach to innovation and the use and capabilities of our technology can often accelerate time to market, reduce costs and create differentiation. We recognise that our service is mission critical to our partners and the reliability of our service is essential for them and their customers. |
The Board engages with our partners through the CEO and receives regular information about partners in Board reports and other business reports. We engage with our partners through our regional and global partner conferences. We recently held our first virtual session with partners and will be hosting these regularly going forwards. The live broadcasts are designed to keep our partners updated on our exciting plans for 2021. We are also launching a new partner portal in 2021 through which partners will have access to news articles and blogs. |
Shareholders and Lenders(our Investors) | We have a clear responsibility to engage with shareholders and lenders to our business and our shareholders' viewsare an important element of our strategy. | We keep our shareholders regularly informed through our Governance frameworks while lenders receive quarterly updates and a presentation on the performance of the organisation from the CFO. There is an opportunity for lenders to ask questions on the financial performance of the business at the end of each presentation. Lender consensus is fed back directly to the Board as part of the routinefinancial update agenda item. |
Suppliers | Supply chain integrity is a critical part of our business as we rely on our suppliers to help meet our customers’ needs. During Covid-19 times, ensuring the logistic channels remained open was essential for us and our suppliers. |
We engage with our suppliers via our procurement teams as well as through other functions such as legal, compliance and health and safety. Material suppliers are engaged regularly through our Supplier Relationship Management programme where we hold quarterly business reviews and annual reviews with senior management looking backwards at performance and forwards at future business opportunities. The Board receives information through Board reports and reviews our strategy and performance in following the requirements of the Modern Slavery Act each year. The Board reviews the payment practices of the Group as part of routine financial updates. For the full year 2020, 87% of suppliers were paid on time (2019: 49%). This significant improvement is a result of focus on improving supplier relationships for the long-term. |
Local Communities | Communities rightly expect local employers to operate safely, effectively and sustainably and to give back to society. Our education activities support local schools, give our people new skills, help us recruit new talent in the future and create a positive societal impact. |
We engage with local communities through our local offices and sites. The Board, through the CEO, who delegates oversight to the Chief People Officer, receives regular information in the CEO’s Board reports and in other Board reports. The Chief People Officer oversees a comprehensive global outreach programme of promoting STEM careers to women and girls and tackling social mobility through partnerships with schools and targeted organisations. 2020 has challenged the execution of this programme, however our STEM outreach remains very important to us, and during 2020 we refreshed our STEM educational engagement programme, redesigning for the current context and environment. This global offering comprising a range of activities across the early years’ spectrum will be delivered virtually and will extend our reach and participation. We are also partnering with the Maiden outreach programme (www.themaidenfactor.org) and supporting them to help drive awareness and understanding of STEM subjects with the communities they work with. We made a strong start to 2020 engaging with local communities as part of our STEM outreach programmes. We welcomed 150 Cadets to the London Headquarters to participate in an interactive STEM Insight day. We hosted High School Insights Days to connect the work Inmarsat does to the STEM curriculum. We partnered with a London primary school to deliver our first Whole School STEM Takeover day with Inmarsat volunteers running all lessons for all classes. We partnered with the Maritime Business Unit and Nekton/Encounter EDU to connect schools in our network with 'exploring the deep sea'. We hoped to exceed our targets and the impact made in 2019 and feedback, particularly on the Cadet day and School Takeover, was overwhelmingly positive. In April 2020 all educational engagement activity was suspended due to Covid-19. Whilst we continued to liaise with schools we were unable to offer work experience placements or STEM initiatives. Whilst we were not weren’t able to have the impact we had planned in 2020, Covid-19 provided us with the opportunity to rethink how we engage with young people and we developed a range of offerings to enable greater geographical reach and a broader range of initiatives that can be delivered virtually as well as in person when appropriate. The impact of this will mean our programmes are more inclusive (more access to young people from across the globe, particularly benefiting those from disadvantaged backgrounds) with stronger links to the STEM national curriculum. |