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Hi all,

I'm surprised not to see discussion around this here. There is a lot of movement in the regional branches of GW at the moment. I only know for France, but I wouldn't be surprise that this is also put in place for Germany, Italy, Spain, etc ...

From what is discussed on the biggest French wargaming forum:

- No more GW France, only the 2 regional directors and the national director to stay. No closure of GW shops, though.
- Customer services to be based in Lenton, not Aix-en-Provence any more.

I think the half-yearly financial statement refers to it:

http://investor.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/2013-14-Press-statement-final-released.pdf

We have just announced a major re-organisation of our sales businesses to allow management by
channel: retail, trade and direct. Our retail businesses will be consolidated under a single Retail Sales
Manager for each of our key geographic areas – UK, Europe and North America. Trade sales will be
consolidated into a global business, operating from Lenton, Nottingham.

This will be part of the big Re-shuffle I have been hearing about from sources. A lot of change is coming inside GW over the next year or 2.

This makes a ton of business sense and is how the vast majority of organizations who manufacture and market a niche product operate across different sales regions.

To be honest, I'm surprised this didn't happen sooner.

I expect we'll see no real changes until the dust begins to settle. Changes the end consumer will likely see will be improved consistency and sharing of successful ideas between regions. We'll also likely see fewer issues surrounding different FAQ rulings in different languages if the support is centralized.

I agree with poster above. Surprised this didn't happen sooner.

Changes the end consumer will likely see will be improved consistency and sharing of successful ideas between regions. We'll also likely see fewer issues surrounding different FAQ rulings in different languages if the support is centralized.

Maybe, but as you can imaging there is still a lot of emotion around this (it means no more France-based GT, no more Games Day, etc ...), and a lot of concerns around the translation.
Most of you haven't notice, but since at least one year more and more stuff are not translated. Supplements, everything done by the Digital Editions ... And before someone says "yes but you should learn English lololol", just try to imagine the section "you make da call" if the rules where written in Spanish. Yes, it is already a mess without adding the "lost in translation" effect, so just imagine being judge in a tournament where you add translation discussion on top of the rule issues.

Anyway, as you said, only time will tell.

I actually speak English, Spanish, French and German with the ability to read more.

I can say without any reservation that if the rules were "tighter" and written in such a way that avoided ambiguity, they would be much easier to translate.

Take Magic the Gathering for example. The rules for that game might as well have been written by lawyers. It is evidently VERY easy to translate into different languages.

The underlying issue is not that translation can add errors, it's that the source material (the rules) are written pretty poorly to begin with.

This makes a lot of sense. After all, France is a part of the UK.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
This makes a lot of sense. After all, France is a part of the UK.

The outcome of Hundred Years War, and treaty of Picquigny of 1475 disproves your delirious comment.

If you Frenchmen would just stop running away from the outrageous GW prices none of this would happen.........LOL...JK

I do see lots of changes down the pipeline to GW or they will put themselves out of business

Companies go through these sorts of corporate restructuring all the time. From a financial industry standpoint, this is almost a non issue. The only people who will really care are the French (or applicable region) end consumers. Noone else will care.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
This makes a lot of sense. After all, France is a part of the UK.

I'm confused now. We are not part of any kingdom, united or not. We decapitate our kings, rather than consider them representatives of God on earth or something, whatever that “Supreme Governor of the Church of England” is supposed to mean.

Royal decapitations are way more fun than boring royal marriage.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
This makes a lot of sense. After all, France is a part of the UK.

I'm confused now. We are not part of any kingdom, united or not. We decapitate our kings, rather than consider them representatives of God on earth or something, whatever that “Supreme Governor of the Church of England” is supposed to mean.

Royal decapitations are way more fun than boring royal marriage.

It was a joke about how England owns France. I know it doesn't reallt, hence the

GW powershrinking escalates even further:
They reduced sales staff to the bone, now they reduce non-UK administration to the bone. Interesting to see if UK bean counters got more staff at the same time

 JeffVimes wrote:
Most of you haven't notice, but since at least one year more and more stuff are not translated. Supplements, everything done by the Digital Editions ... And before someone says "yes but you should learn English lololol", just try to imagine the section "you make da call" if the rules where written in Spanish. Yes, it is already a mess without adding the "lost in translation" effect, so just imagine being judge in a tournament where you add translation discussion on top of the rule issues.

At least you still got the products names on the box in your language and letters. Think of East Asian customers!

This is the continuation of the cannibalizing any assets or overhead to ensure profit is maintained for dividends and show the company is "healthy" while trying to minimize or hide overall income.

It is far easier to predict expenditure decreases than growing the customer base. There is a great deal of incentive for the board who hold most of the shares to provide dividends so they get that big self determined pay raise every year.

Most of the "easy" areas for cost reduction have been hit, now targeting middle-management will be a huge short term gain, long term loss. The nosebleed management may have to get more involved in the "day to day" decisions where they may now have to work for a living. They may not like that.

The french speaking staff members used to have formations in that Aix location. Most of those barely speak English properly, so having to be "taught" how to sell little Billy stuff will get much harder for them. Fun ensues ...

I have purposefully bought the Spanish version of the bid book to aid in learning Spanish, it's quite fun

My agents just informed me that the head of the US, Sandra, just got axed today.

Many boffins died to bring you that information.

 Kriswall wrote:
Companies go through these sorts of corporate restructuring all the time. From a financial industry standpoint, this is almost a non issue. The only people who will really care are the French (or applicable region) end consumers. Noone else will care.

The first thing that needs to happen in the "restructuring" is for the majority share holders to demand the resignation of Kirby.

 mikhaila wrote:
My agents just informed me that the head of the US, Sandra, just got axed today.

Many boffins died to bring you that information.

I understand she was also hated by the people under her.

 mikhaila wrote:
My agents just informed me that the head of the US, Sandra, just got axed today.

Many boffins died to bring you that information.

Sandra Casey, who was left in charge after Tom Kirby's 'Coming to America' tour came to a close, with the relocation from Baltimore (which she oversaw) and enough severed heads to start a wig shop with...

This does look quite a lot like
'I leave you, my apprentice, to carry out my orders and ring in the changes in North America, bring about the glory I have wrought in the UK!'
'My lord, your changes are having negative impact with our independent retailer relations and our profits are falling through the floor'
'oh? It must be you not doing them right! Your fired!'


http://www.linkedin.com/pub/sandra-casey/1b/8b6/840

 mikhaila wrote:
My agents just informed me that the head of the US, Sandra, just got axed today.

Many boffins died to bring you that information.

JUSTICE!

About damn time. She's up there in my Top 10 list of "Most Useless Coworkers".

What I disliked most about her was that she was supposed to be the one you could go to if you had issues or problems with your manager that couldn't be resolved, but in the end she would just turn around and tell that manager what you said and let them deal with you, which most always resulted in someone getting fired.

A few other people I knew at GW had already been fired or laid off that completely deserved it, now there's just a few more to go (IMHO).

Shame GW won't entertain re-hiring all the experienced, competent staff they lost over the last 5 years or so due to those incompetent, inexperienced managers. I know a few really good people that could use a job right now!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Sandra Casey was useless, plain and simple.

Her Linkdin resume should say "I sat around doing nothing since I'm not really qualified to do anything. I let everyone else do the actual work and took credit for it when I went over the pond to the UK since no one would really know."

She (and Andre K) should have been fired years ago before a lot of good people,experienced staff that GW now need, got fired so other less competent managers (their cronies) could keep their jobs.

 Kriswall wrote:
I actually speak English, Spanish, French and German with the ability to read more.

I can say without any reservation that if the rules were "tighter" and written in such a way that avoided ambiguity, they would be much easier to translate.

Take Magic the Gathering for example. The rules for that game might as well have been written by lawyers. It is evidently VERY easy to translate into different languages.

The underlying issue is not that translation can add errors, it's that the source material (the rules) are written pretty poorly to begin with.

Agreed!

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
This makes a lot of sense. After all, France is a part of the UK.

I'm confused now. We are not part of any kingdom, united or not. We decapitate our kings, rather than consider them representatives of God on earth or something, whatever that “Supreme Governor of the Church of England” is supposed to mean.

Royal decapitations are way more fun than boring royal marriage.

It was a joke about how England owns France. I know it doesn't reallt, hence the

I know. I was joking too. I know Englishmen just pretend to live under some medieval regime, since their kings and queens don't hold any real power, and that they do not really believe in their state religion. I mean, people can believe pretty silly things, but “The kings are representatives of God on earth because some ancient king said so” seems just overmuch !

 B0B MaRlEy wrote:
Most of those barely speak English properly

Really ? It is that bad ?

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 B0B MaRlEy wrote:
Most of those barely speak English properly

Really ? It is that bad ?

Somehow I tend to attract non-French speaking "foreigners" whenever I go to GW "hobby centers". In different locations (at least 5 IIRC) I ended up explaining to the client whatever he wanted to know to put the staff out of their misery ...
France has a huge number of centers, so it probably isn't that representative of the average ... Although a manager I was chatting with told me he'd been told in the UK HQ he was one of the best English speakers of the France staffers, and he's not really that good I'm afraid ...

 Kriswall wrote:
This makes a ton of business sense and is how the vast majority of organizations who manufacture and market a niche product operate across different sales regions.

To be honest, I'm surprised this didn't happen sooner.

I expect we'll see no real changes until the dust begins to settle. Changes the end consumer will likely see will be improved consistency and sharing of successful ideas between regions. We'll also likely see fewer issues surrounding different FAQ rulings in different languages if the support is centralized.

This is just one side of the medal. The other is that less advertisement might bring less new players into the game: The German Drakenburg is closing, an extremely nice place to play. Will the products like codices still be translated to German after closing the German HQ?