Fenmoor Specialty Underwriting / BG-Demo – QBR
Callcompleted
Fenmoor Specialty Underwriting · 12 Aug 2025 16:00
At the 12 Aug 2025 QBR, about ten daily users against 40 Growth seats led the COO to question the £44k cost. Callum Reid defended the value as oversight time saved. Renewal goes to the board after the new year.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026At the 12 Aug 2025 QBR, about ten daily users against 40 Growth seats led the COO to question the £44k cost. Callum Reid defended the value as oversight time saved. Renewal goes to the board after the new year.
What happened: Daniel Okafor ran the quarterly review on 12 Aug 2025 with Callum Reid and Richard Thorne. Usage was steady at about ten daily active people against 40 licensed Growth seats.
Customer view: Richard asked whether Fenmoor is paying for seats it does not use and wanted a board-ready value case. Callum said the value is the time taken off capacity-provider oversight queries, not user numbers.
Commercial: Richard said he would take the renewal to the board in the new year and described the direction as not unfavourable. The renewal date quoted on the call was 1 Jul 2026.
Watch: Use is concentrated in Callum and two or three of his team. No hours-saved figure exists because it has not been measured.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Value case and seat usage
Importance
renewal
Sentiment
mixed
Voice
decision-maker
Who was there
BG-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Daniel Okafor to send Callum a draft one-page usage summary by the end of the following week, with Callum adding his own estimate of the time the queries used to take.
- Callum to nominate a senior underwriter to build the first dashboards with Daniel, and to send examples of older submissions the search missed.
- Priya Raman and Daniel to hold the renewal conversation with Richard after the new year.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Only about a quarter of the 40 Growth seats are in daily use, so the COO may not see value for £44,000 at renewal.
- Use is concentrated in Callum and two or three colleagues, a key-person risk if they step back.
- The absence of tickets may mean a quiet user base rather than a healthy one.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Dashboards built on the Growth dashboards builder could put the recurring syndicate cuts in front of underwriters and widen use.
- A one-page summary of questions asked and who asks them gives Richard something to take to the board.
Transcript
Daniel OkaforHello, can everyone hear me alright? Lovely. Thank you all for making time this afternoon. Let me just check who has joined – I can see Priya, and Callum, and I think Richard has just come in as well.
Richard ThorneGood afternoon. I am here. Audio is fine.
Callum ReidAfternoon. Yes, all here. I've got a hard stop at about five, so if we can keep to the agenda that would help.- Daniel OkaforAbsolutely, we'll be done well before then. It's the quarterly review, so the plan is to look at how the team is using the brain, whether it's earning its place, and then a short word on the renewal next summer. Priya, did you want to open with a recap?
Priya RamanThanks, Daniel – yes, quickly. So where we are: Fenmoor has been live on Growth since 1 Jul 2024, the contract runs to 30 Jun 2026, renewal date 1 Jul 2026. Nothing is urgent today – this is really about making sure you're getting the value, and, to keep momentum, agreeing a couple of things we can do between now and the autumn.- Callum ReidFine. What I need is a straight view of whether my underwriters are actually using it, and whether I can put it in front of the capacity providers as evidence that we have a handle on oversight.
- Daniel OkaforThat's a fair thing to ask for, and I'll try to answer it plainly. On usage, the picture is steady rather than growing. Over the last month, on an average day, about ten people are active in the brain. That's very slightly lower than the quarter before – a couple of percent, nothing that worries me – but it's not rising either.
- Callum ReidTen. Out of how many seats?
- Daniel OkaforForty licensed on Growth. So roughly a quarter of the seats are in daily use.
- Callum ReidRight. That's lower than I'd have liked.
- Richard ThorneDaniel. Forty seats and ten users. Are we paying for thirty we do not use?
- Daniel OkaforI'd put it a little differently, Richard, if I may. Daily active is a strict measure. More people than ten will have opened it over a month. But the honest answer is yes, there is unused headroom, and I'd rather say that to you than dress it up. The question is whether the right people are the ones using it.
- Priya RamanAnd it's worth saying – the ones who do use it are using it for exactly the thing you bought it for. Callum, that's the oversight questions, isn't it?
- Callum ReidMostly me and two or three of the team, yes. Bordereaux queries, the questions that come in from the syndicates. Before, that ate a day or more. Now it's – it's an hour, sometimes less.
- Daniel OkaforThat's what I see in the question history as well, Callum. A small group asking quite a lot of questions, and a lot of them are the repeat kind – what's outstanding on this binder, which claims tickets are open against this cargo account, that sort of thing.
- Callum ReidThat's a capacity-provider question, that one. Every quarter. They always want the same cut.
- Richard ThorneSo the value is concentrated in one department and a few people.
- Daniel OkaforConcentrated, yes. And I'll be careful here, because it's both a strength and a risk. A strength because it's clearly doing the job. A risk because if two of those people were away, the habit might go with them.
- Callum ReidI'm not going anywhere.
- Daniel OkaforNo, no, I didn't mean – I just mean in general, for any customer. It's why I like to see it spread.
- Priya RamanWhich is the bit I wanted to pick up. Callum, who else sits around you who gets those same questions? Are the underwriters themselves asking, or do they come to you?
- Callum ReidThey come to me. The underwriters are busy writing business. If it's not in front of them in a page they don't go looking. That's the honest truth.
- Daniel OkaforThat's useful to hear. And that's something we can actually help with. Growth includes the dashboards builder, and at the moment I don't think you've built many. If we put the three or four cuts the syndicates always ask for onto a page that the underwriters see first thing, you may find the numbers go up without anyone changing their habits much.
- Callum ReidDashboards that are right at 07:00. That's the test. If it's stale I don't want it.
- Daniel OkaforUnderstood. The nightly refresh is meant to be complete by 07:00 on business days, and I've been watching it for you. There have been no tickets from your team in the last month, and nothing flagged on our side, so I'd say it has been behaving.
- Callum ReidNo tickets because nothing's broken, or no tickets because nobody's looking?
- Daniel OkaforFair challenge. Mm. Honestly, a bit of both is possible, which is part of why I'd like to go through it with your people. With a small user base, silence can mean it's fine and it can mean it's quiet. I'd rather find out which.
- Priya RamanAnd on the account side, there's nothing outstanding either – invoices are all paid, so no admin headaches there. I'm saying that mainly so Richard doesn't have anything surprising on his desk.
- Richard ThorneThank you. I do not like surprises.
- Richard ThorneLet me ask the question I came with. What does this cost us, all in?
- Daniel OkaforOf course. You're on Growth at forty-four thousand pounds a year. That's the subscription, invoiced annually in advance, and it covers the forty users, the connectors in your order form, the dashboards builder and these quarterly reviews.
- Richard ThorneForty-four. And that is the whole of it? Nothing sits on top of that?
- Priya RamanNothing on top, Richard, for what you have today. Add-ons – more users, more connectors, premium support – those only come in if you choose them. Happy to make that easy to see on one page for you.
- Richard ThornePlease do. Keep it simple.
- Richard ThorneNow. Forty-four thousand for ten daily users. If the board asks me what we get for that, what do I say?
- Callum ReidI'd say this, Richard. The capacity providers ask us oversight questions every quarter. Before the brain it was a week of my team's time. Now it's a fraction of that. And the answers are consistent, which matters to them. That's the value. It's not about how many users, it's about what it takes off us.
- Richard ThorneI understand that. I would want it written down in a way I can take to the board. Hours saved, or the questions answered. Something I can point at.
- Daniel OkaforI can do that. Just to close the loop – what I'd propose is a one-page summary before the autumn: the questions asked month by month, who asks them, and the kinds of oversight queries it's been answering. I won't invent an hours-saved figure, because we haven't measured it. But Callum, if you can give me a rough sense of how long those queries took before, we could put your own estimate next to it.
- Callum ReidI can do that. By when?
- Daniel OkaforI'll come back to you by the end of next week with a draft, and you tell me where it's wrong.
- Callum ReidFine.
- Priya RamanCan I add something, just to keep momentum? Richard, you mentioned the board. When does the renewal normally come up for you? I'd rather we're not discussing it in June.
- Richard ThorneI will need to take that to the board in the new year, I would think. I cannot commit to anything on a call. I will say the direction is not unfavourable.
- Priya RamanThat's all I wanted – thank you. So the shape is: summary now, spread the usage over the autumn, and a proper renewal conversation after the new year, with Daniel and me both there.
- Daniel OkaforOne more thing from me, if I may. How is the team finding it day to day? Not the headline – the small irritations. The sort of thing that would never become a ticket.
- Callum ReidIt's good. It's – look, there are times when a question returns more than I need. I want one line and I get a paragraph. And one of my people said the search doesn't always find the older submissions straight away.
- Daniel OkaforThat's helpful. Could you ask them to send me one or two examples of the older submissions? Even just the name of the cargo account. I can then see whether it's how the question is phrased or whether something isn't being indexed.
- Callum ReidI'll get them to send it to you.
- Richard ThorneIs there anything further I need to decide today?
- Daniel OkaforNo decisions today, Richard. Just the summary coming your way, and you'll see a note from Priya on the options so you've got them on one page.
- Richard ThorneGood. Then I will leave you to it. Thank you, all.
- Priya RamanThanks, Richard. Speak soon.
- Callum ReidDaniel, a quick one while we've got a minute. The dashboards. Who builds them, you or us?
- Daniel OkaforEither, really. The builder is there for your team, but for the first few I'd happily sit with whoever you nominate and build them together. Then it's theirs.
- Callum ReidGood. I'll put someone forward. One of the senior underwriters, probably.
- Priya RamanBrilliant – that's a nice small win to take away. Callum, anything else?
- Callum ReidNo. That's what I needed. Thanks. Callum.
- Daniel OkaforThank you both. I'll send a short note after this with the actions, so we've all got it in writing. Take care.
- Daniel OkaforBest wishes, everyone – goodbye.
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