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Bergeron believes that 95 percent of business decisions can
be reached within five minutes. Acting on that belief, he
empowered managers to act quickly based on experience. To
further encourage fleetness, he locked the conference room
doors. When employees had to decide on actions standing at
cubicles, the pace picked up.
Bergeron also turned back to VeriFone’s customers, asking
them what they had originally liked about doing business with
the company.
“The customers knew more about the business
than I did,” says Bergeron. “I wasn’t afraid to ask them what we
needed to do.”
Those strategies worked. By 2003 VeriFone was posting $350
million in sales and was profitable again. Bergeron recalibrated
his management team’s orientations from turnaround mode to
growth and opportunity seeking. As one of only three companies
offering these payment-processing services, VeriFone found
its success to be a magnet for engineers and programmers. It
unabashedly raided the competition
and set tough stretch goals for itself.
And it looked at the highest future
growth area – wireless technology.
In 2005 the company went public,
opening at $10.75 a share on the
New York Stock Exchange (NYSE),
and its climb has continued. Today
the share price exceeds $35 and
the company has a market cap of $3
billion with nearly $1 billion in sales.
VeriFone offers 300 product lines in
110 countries. It boasts 65 percent
of the market share in the United
States and Canada, and 50 percent
worldwide. Some 105 mutual
funds invest in its stock. Not only
does it have large agreements with
retailers such as IKEA, the world’s
leading home furnishings company, but it is also showing up in
nontraditional locations, such as taxis in Philadelphia and the
subway system in New York City.
The success has allowed Bergeron to spend more time with
his family and to spread the good fortune he’s encountered
to others. He and his wife, Sandra, are engaged in what he
calls “active philanthropy.” They made a $1 million gift to the
Multiple Sclerosis Society to fund research at the Mayo Clinic in
Minneapolis. They made a half million gift to Catholic Charities
in California to renovate a senior citizen facility for very low
income new immigrants in a Vietnamese-American community.
And recently they have established a $1 million scholarship
fund and mentorship program at the Robinson College of
Business to support women who seek careers in technology
leadership. (See related story on page 18.) “Long after the
year they receive the award, women will have someone in a
senior executive position in technology that they can call on,”
Bergeron says. “That is worth 10 times more than just paying
somebody’s tuition check. That will make $1 million grow to
tens of millions.”
That is thinking outside the box.
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