>> Alumni interview
Alumni interview:
Dominic Taylor (MBA 1990)
By Stephen Hoare
Making life
for the consumer
>> Dominic Taylor, CEO of PayPoint, talks about how
the Cranfield MBA demilitarised him and gave him the
foundations to become really good at building and growing
things, which is exactly what he has done with PayPoint.
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Management Focus | Autumn 2013
H
aving spent twelve years as a
Royal Navy officer serving in
submarines, Dominic Taylor
felt the time had come for a switch to a
business career. In 1989, a Cranfield
MBA was the catalyst in helping
Dominic turn his leadership talents
towards corporate management and
entrepreneurship.
As CEO of PayPoint, the UK’s leading
cash payment systems operator,
Dominic has led a business, that has
made life easier for millions, from start
up to a successful public flotation in
2004. Since floatation, a strategy
of rapid expansion through vertical
integration has added new revenues
to PayPoint such as the online parcels
distribution business Collect+, a
joint venture with Yodel. Acquired in
2010, the mobile payments business
PayByPhone (best known for parking
has seen the company enter the USA,
France and Canada and opened up the
possibilities of integrating multi-channel
payment technologies across the group,
complementing existing cash and
internet channels.
Developed to process parking charges,
PayByPhone is being adopted by a
growing number of local authorities in
the USA, Canada and the UK and cities
including New York and San Francisco.
Meanwhile, Collect+ is supported by
over 230 online retailers including all of
the important brands - Amazon, eBay,
ASOS and John Lewis. Today, the
PayPoint Group handles over £14 billion
in payments from around 740 million
transactions for more than 6,000 clients
annually.
The decision to study for an MBA meant
remortgaging his house. With a wife
and young family to support, Dominic
was determined to seize whatever
opportunities came his way. “For me
the MBA was the means through which
I could achieve a career hand-brake
turn. It allowed me to reflect on who
I was and move forward,” he recalls.
Dominic went on to win the Odgers
prize while at Cranfield, awarded to the
student in each MBA year group with
the most leadership potential.
After Cranfield, business experience
piled up for Dominic. The launch of
a property services business was
followed by six years at Vodafone during
which he rose to become sales and
marketing director. After a year with
Granada as director of their technology
group, Dominic was headhunted in
1997 to become the retail director of an
exciting new enterprise that had been
launched a year earlier.
The business was PayPoint, a platform
designed to process cash payments
for utilities companies from domestic
customers. Dominic was immediately
hooked on the idea. “I was so
interested in the proposition, I took a
pay cut and demotion to join,” he says.
However, within a matter of months
the fledgling company was in trouble.
Forced to refinance the business,
Management Focus | Autumn 2013
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>> Alumni interview
What I enjoyed most
about my Cranfield MBA
was understanding how
to build. PayPoint is a
growth story: I want the
company to get bigger
and bigger.
PayPoint’s backers demanded the
resignation of the then CEO and
chairman and Dominic was appointed
CEO and, with a new chairman, was
tasked with coming up with a new
business plan. It was make or break.
This plan led to the creation of a
national network of highly visible
payment terminals operated through
local shops, garages and convenience
stores. Payment was in cash and
customers were able to pre or post pay
their bills in store. PayPoint’s sales force
rapidly won the confidence of most of
the UK’s utilities and other companies
as well as the shopkeepers.
Soon, small shopkeepers were queuing
up to participate. “We were driving
customers into their stores so they liked
us. Customers that want to pay their
bills could very well combine paying
their bill or topping up their mobile
phone with shopping. Convenience
stores are always looking to get more
footfall,” says Dominic who explains that
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Management Focus | Autumn 2013
PayPoint’s business model rests on
very small margins and a high volume
of transactions.
PayPoint finally moved into profit in
2003 and a year later was taken to a
successful public flotation. “By then,
we’d done Ireland and we decided to
launch in Romania because of the
number of small cash transactions in
the economy. That market has grown
very rapidly and has now turned to
profit,” says Dominic.
Today the company has a network of
some 25,000 outlets across the UK
mostly serving densely populated
towns and cities. Value added services
for the retailer like ATMs, international
money transfer, mobile phone top-up
and parcels collection (with a full online
track and trace facility) followed.
If the idea of a multi-service community
based retail business sounds familiar,
it’s because it is. Dominic names
the Post Office as PayPoint’s closest
competitor.
But as the Post Office has steadily lost
ground to commercial rivals, PayPoint
has grown – to the point where it has
recently won a Government contract to
process state pension payments.
Dominic describes his own successes
as an opportunity missed by the Post
Office. “The Post Office has around
three thousand eight hundred people
in its head office and benefits from
three to four hundred million pounds of
taxpayers’ money per year to subsidise
the branch network. The problem for
customers is that at the times when
they most need it, the Post Office is
usually shut. We succeed in business
by providing a local service in the heart
of the community that is convenient for
all at all hours,” he asserts.
In a recent radio interview with Evan
Davies for the BBC programme The
Bottom Line, Dominic was quoted as
saying ‘the key to differentiating your
company from its competitors is through
innovation.’
But PayPoint’s success is about
much more than technical innovation
and customer care. Leadership and
company culture also play a big part.
PayPoint employs around six hundred
staff, half of whom are based in Welwyn
Garden City. Most are in sales,
customer relationship management,
and IT. “There’s a family feel to
this business and we celebrate our
successes because staff above all
want to feel valued and good about
themselves,” says Dominic.
He describes his mission in simple
terms – to grow the business. “In
hindsight, what I enjoyed most about
my Cranfield MBA was understanding
how to build. PayPoint is a growth story:
I want the company to get bigger and
bigger.”
in vertical markets; to focus on value
added services and content; and to
increase geographical reach. “The role
of the CEO is twofold: to communicate
the strategy and to have the right
people in place to execute that strategy,”
says Dominic.
Dominic is proud of having built a
growth business and seen it prosper
through turbulent times. He sums up:
“In sixteen years we have grown five
different businesses, and moved the
group from single channel to multichannel; private to public, and from
international to national organisations.
We’re now in the UK, Ireland, France,
Romania and the USA and Canada.
The one truth about this business is you
can’t stand still. If you do, the rest of the
world will be moving forward.” MF
Dominic outlines a fourfold strategic
vision which is: to develop and maintain
broad payment capability through
cash, internet and mobile; to be strong
Management Focus | Autumn 2013
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