Lornefield Pensions Administration / BG-Demo – Check In
Callcompleted
Lornefield Pensions Administration · 24 Sep 2025 14:45
Imogen Hartley, Head of Data, warned that conversations involving Dunmarra could put Signalvane against the brain. Users love it, but she wants a value story for the trustees. Nobody has said it must go.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Imogen Hartley, Head of Data, warned that conversations involving Dunmarra could put Signalvane against the brain. Users love it, but she wants a value story for the trustees. Nobody has said it must go.
What happened: on the 24 Sep 2025 check-in Imogen said conversations involving Dunmarra are under way and that Dunmarra run Signalvane across their businesses. She stressed she is reading the weather and that no one has said the brain must go.
Customer view: the small group who use the brain love it, but she doubts anyone above her will weigh the difference against a standard tool already paid for. She asked for a plain account of what relationship managers do with it.
Commercial: Daniel stated the contract runs to 2 Apr 2026 and renews on 3 Apr 2026. Imogen is cautious about a second team, though scheme accounting has asked about the brain.
Watch: she asked to keep this low key. The call does not show what Dunmarra decided or how the renewal ended.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Group-wide rival tool threat
Importance
renewal
Sentiment
mixed
Voice
champion
Who was there
BG-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Daniel drafts the plain-language usage story and sends it to Imogen by early the following week.
- Daniel briefs Nell on the commercial side before the draft goes out.
- Daniel raises nothing about a second team with anyone until Imogen says.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Conversations involving Dunmarra, which runs Signalvane across its businesses, could lead leadership to prefer the group-wide suite.
- Only a small group uses the brain heavily, so decision-makers may judge it from a line in a spreadsheet.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- A usage story built on trustee call prep, member queries and fee invoices could make the case for the subscription.
- A second team such as scheme accounting could widen the base, once Imogen agrees.
Transcript
Daniel OkaforHello Imogen, good afternoon. Can you hear me all right?
Imogen HartleyI can, yes. Afternoon, Daniel. Give me a second, I've got the headset on the wrong laptop. There. Better?- Daniel OkaforMuch better. Thank you for making the time, I know this is a busy stretch for you.
- Imogen HartleyIt's been a week. Trustee meeting on Monday, a couple of scheme audits circling, and the lift's out of order, so everybody's on the stairs and in a mood. How are you? Is it as grey down there as it is up here?
- Daniel OkaforGrey, and a bit drizzly. I won't complain. Right, I thought we could do the usual: have a look at how the team is using the brain, any tickets, anything you'd like changed. And then you said in your note there was something else you wanted to raise.
- Imogen HartleyI did. Let's do the usual first, though. It'll make more sense afterwards.
- Daniel OkaforOf course. So, usage. The relationship managers are still the heart of it. The trustee call summaries and the member-query view are the pages that get opened most, and the fee invoice lookups are steady. Active users have dipped a touch against the last quarter, nothing dramatic, and I'd guess that's partly people on leave. How is the team finding it?
- Imogen HartleyHonestly? The people who use it, love it. That's the slightly frustrating thing. We have forty licences and a much smaller group who live in it day to day. The ones who live in it can't imagine going back to hunting through three systems before a trustee meeting.
- Daniel OkaforThat fits what I see. A small group asking a lot of questions, and good ones. Tickets have been quiet as well: two in the last month, both how-to, both closed the same day. Nothing high priority.
- Imogen HartleyYes, I saw those. One was mine, actually, about a dashboard filter. Your support person was lovely.
- Daniel OkaforGood, I'll pass that on. And on the money side everything is paid and up to date, so no loose ends there. Just to close the loop, the contract runs to 2 Apr 2026 and renews on 3 Apr 2026, so we're a good while off, but I like to talk early.
- Imogen HartleyWhich is, in a roundabout way, why I wanted to speak. Daniel, I want to be straight with you, because you've been straight with me for three years.
- Daniel OkaforPlease. Go ahead.
- Imogen HartleyThere are conversations going on that involve Dunmarra. I can't say much about them and I'm not going to pretend I know where they land. But I do know how Dunmarra operate. They run Signalvane across their businesses. All of them. It's how they like to see the numbers.
- Daniel OkaforRight. Okay. Thank you for telling me, I appreciate that. Signalvane, the group-wide analytics suite.
- Imogen HartleyThat's the one. And I'll say, it's a different animal. It's built for a group that wants one set of dashboards over everything. It isn't built to sit on trustee calls and member tickets the way yours does. But the real question is whether anyone above me will care about that difference when they see a standard tool already paid for.
- Daniel OkaforThat's fair, and it's a sensible way to put it. Can I ask a couple of things? Has anyone said the brain would have to go, or is this you reading the weather?
- Imogen HartleyReading the weather. Nobody has said anything. But I've seen this pattern before. A tool that one team loves gets looked at by people who've never opened it, and the only thing they have to go on is a line in a spreadsheet.
- Daniel OkaforMm. So the line in the spreadsheet needs a story behind it.
- Imogen HartleyExactly that. What would I want? I'd want something I can put in front of the trustees and the people above them. Not a brochure. What the relationship managers actually do with it, how much quicker prep is, what they'd lose.
- Daniel OkaforI can do that. We have the questions asked over time, who is asking, and which pages feed the trustee preparation. If you tell me which examples would land best, I can build them around those rather than guess.
- Imogen HartleyThe trustee call prep is the strongest. The member-query side is second. The fee invoices, honestly, are the least glamorous but the finance people will notice if they vanish.
- Daniel OkaforUnderstood. I'd also like to bring Nell in. She looks after the commercial side of your account, and if the Dunmarra people do ask for terms or a comparison, I'd rather she'd heard it from us first. Is that all right with you?
- Imogen HartleyYes, please do. Just keep it low key for now. I'd rather not have it become a thing before there is a thing.
- Daniel OkaforOf course. Nothing goes beyond Nell and me, and nothing goes to anyone at your end except through you.
- Imogen HartleyThank you. And Daniel, I'm not saying we're leaving. I'm saying let's make it count while we've got the room.
- Daniel OkaforUnderstood, and that's how I'd like to treat it too. One more thing, if I may. Of the forty licences, would it help to see whether a second team could get value from it? A wider base is a better answer to a group-wide tool than a narrow one.
- Imogen HartleyPossibly. The scheme accounting people have been asking what we do with it. But I wouldn't push that until we know what's happening above us. Let me think.
- Daniel OkaforFine by me. I'll not raise it with anyone until you say.
- Imogen HartleyGood. So, next steps. What am I getting and when?
- Daniel OkaforI'll write up the usage story, trustee prep first, then member queries, then invoices, in plain language. I'll come back to you by early next week with a draft, and you can tell me what's wrong with it. I'll brief Nell before then.
- Imogen HartleyPerfect. And I'll tell you the moment I hear anything that changes the picture.
- Daniel OkaforThank you, Imogen. I know that wasn't an easy thing to raise.
- Imogen HartleyIt was easier with you. Right, I must go and find out why the stairs are full of people. Speak soon.
- Daniel OkaforSpeak soon. Best wishes, and mind the lift.
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