Martyn Hodges

I joined Systematics International in January 1982 as Marketing Manager, having worked at Massey Ferguson for eight years in a variety of UK and European marketing and sales roles. For me it was a huge and very positive change to move from a large multinational organisation to a small company with a ‘can-do’ culture that was open to new ideas and able to adapt to take advantage of opportunities.

I was responsible for the development of the statistics part of the business and working with all the participants and trade associations in the market statistics systems. During the period from 1982 to 1985 we were able to steadily grow the business by expanding the number of participants in the various exchanges and develop individual tailored services for them.

In 1985 the European Commission Competition Directorate (DGIV) decided to open investigations into the operation of the UK Tractor Registration and International Shipments systems in the belief that these statistics were involved in some type of cartel arrangement.

These investigations had a major impact on the business of Systematics and my role was to work with all the participants to organise the defence which was finally successful in 1999. It was a tremendous tribute to the clients of Systematics that they all supported a common defence and worked together over this extended period to defeat this challenge.

In 1987 I became Sales and Marketing Director when Metal Bulletin plc purchased Systematics International. A key task was to grow the business in areas that were not constrained by the DGIV investigation. Several products and services were created, one of which – a contract database for global exchange traded futures and options contracts – went on to be very successful.

In 1998 I became Managing Director and started the search to recruit someone to head up the statistics part of the business. It was very important that the candidate had a good knowledge of the industries Systematics served, possessed strong business acumen as well as the ability to work within a small organisation. It took me at least a year to convince Christine Bhatt to join Systematics from Case IH in Doncaster, and without doubt she was the best recruitment I ever made.

In 2001 I moved to head up another subsidiary company within the Metal Bulletin Group. Subsequently in 2007 Christine & Manuel Bhatt successfully headed up a management buyout of Systematics International.

I left the Metal Bulletin Group in 2004 and have kept in regular contact with Christine and Manuel since then. It has been very interesting to see how they meet and overcome the challenges they face as they continue to develop the business. I believe that that the strong customer service ethos that Systematics always had continues and is even stronger now.

Both Christine and Manuel Bhatt appreciate Gordon’s and Martyn’s account of their time at Systematics and commented that the strong people’s values continue to drive the business forward. In many respects, Systematics faces similar challenges of a changing regulatory environment in the manufacturing and industrial sector and growing the Systematics business model to the next level, whilst also sharing the same passion, enthusiasm and commitment to overcome these challenges.

We all wish you a joyous holiday season and a new year filled with peace and happiness.