Terry Murden: Diageo begins the long haul back to public acceptance

Published on Sunday 27 March 2011 20:05

Two years after its decision to close facilities in Kilmarnock and Glasgow, there is still some lingering bitterness towards multinational whisky producer Diageo, and for understandable reasons.

The Ayrshire packaging plant, with its historic ties to Johnnie Walker, and the Port Dundas distillery were rooted in their communities, providing work for generations of local people.

The closures and 850 job losses were aimed at cutting 40 million from running costs. So the 3.5m investment Diageo announced yesterday to upgrade its distillery at Caol Ila on the Sound of Islay looks modest by comparison.

But it has to be seen in the context of an ongoing investment programme amounting to 600m into Scotland over the past five or six years to modernise facilities and remain competitive.

This has included 86m in a new bottling plant at Leven in Fife, 40m to expand the Cameronbridge grain distillery and another 40m poured into a new distillery at Roseisle in Speyside.

Another 9m went into building a cooperage in Alloa and 3m into a packaging facility in Shieldhall, Glasgow, on top of 15m already invested there in recent years. A year before the Kilmarnock and Port Dundas bombshell, the company announced a 65m investment to create a bio-energy facility at Cameronbridge - believed to be the largest investment in renewable energy by a private company outwith the utilities industry.

So what happened to the 850 people who were deemed surplus to requirements at Kilmarnock - which remains open until next year - and Port Dundas which has already closed? Most chose to leave - 508 took a package - while 344 applied for other positions in the group of whom 102 have been fixed up. Another 162 have been offered posts. The Leven bottling plant will provide work for 400 when it opens next year.

Trying to persuade employees and local communities that their sacrifice will mean a brighter future for those who remain is a hard sell for any company.

But Diageo can point to recent research indicating that the restructuring is working. An index of spirits sales shows some categories of Scotch reversing recent trends, toppling the recent domination of vodka, while Johnnie Walker, Scotland's biggest brand, held its place as the world's top-selling spirit. New figures out from the Scotch Whisky Association this week will show exports of Scotch at a record 3.3bn.

The investment in Caol Ila may be small change for a global enterprise but it's another vote of confidence in Scotch and in Scotland. The improvements will increase production at the Islay distillery by 14 per cent and will provide a boost to the local economy.

It also shows commitment to historic brands and local skills. The hard-headed chaps at Diageo may have a heart, after all.How not to win friends and influence long-time customers

Lloyds Banking Group's new boss Antonio Horta-Osorio says he wants to improve customer service. No wonder. The bank has the most unhappy customers of any financial institution according to the Financial Ombudsman Service which has been monitoring complaints.

And here's another. Over the past few weeks I have been trying to make a transaction through the bank's call centres and it has been a depressing experience.

The number of options (press one for this, two for that… ), the 20-minute wait due to congestion, then being told I need to call another department, on another number. That was just the start of it.

Eventually, after delivering an endless list of identifying details: date of birth, middle names, if any (no I haven't), first line of address, even the date when my wife I took out a joint account (I don't carry that sort of detail around with me so I had to guess as the operative said she could not continue without it).

This was dragging on so I asked the operative to call me back as I was using a mobile phone. But then only to be asked to go through the whole identification rigmarole yet again! My date of birth is exactly the same! In fact, it's not likely to change. Ever. And I still don't have a middle name.

To add insult to injury, ten days later the application form I'd requested hadn't arrived so I had to call back and suffer a third interrogation. It turns out the first operative, so obsessed with checking my identity, had not taken down details of my request!

I have been a customer of Lloyds for 35 years, ever since the bank lured me with a 3 book token when I started university. I think the bank got a bargain.

We live in an era of paranoia over ID and data protection but I would have thought the bank had enough information on me by now that I should not expect to be treated with suspicion, or asked ridiculous questions every time I ask it to conduct a transaction on my behalf.