In this interview with CalvinAyre.com’s Rebecca Liggero, Christina Thakor-Rankin of 1710 Gaming explains why gambling operators should not fear failure.
Business is a matter of trial and error. There’s no guarantee that the start-up company you started will click to the customers in an instant or perhaps an established business will always be booming with revenues.
That’s why many consider putting up a business as a gamble, hoping that lady luck will smile upon them. But no matter what happens, Christina Thakor-Rankin of 1710 Gaming advises gambling operators never to fear failure when it comes knocking at their doorstep.
She believes that most successful companies are the ones that embraces failure.
“As an industry, we have a history where we try something in one territory, it worked, we take it, we transplant it, we stick it in another country, and hope for the best. The world is changing. Mature markets, we are no longer the people who educate others. People are finding their own way,” Rankin told CalvinAyre.com. “The internet has taken away our controls and I think the more successful businesses going forward are the ones who are going to embrace failure for what it is. It is not a fucked up. It is a sign that something needs to change.”
Rankin pointed out that most gambling companies commit errors related to marketing and technical releases. She said the most common marketing errors in company are sending out the wrong information and giving away too much money.
A typical technical releases failure, according to Rankin, happens when companies push something out live and tell it to their customers but end up not working.
“Marketing errors rebounds on a whole bunch of different teams. Not least of all is finance, which is screaming as to why the numbers don’t add up. The other example would be technical. In today’s age, everybody does releases. Managing releases is hugely important,” she said. “The solution to both is exactly the same: it is communication and its risk management. More importantly, it’s the culture shift which says it’s okay if it doesn’t go right.”
Rankin also advises gambling operators to stop the culture of blame game in their companies and instead look at the positive aspect of the incident.
Most people, according to Rankin, dwell on the question of what went wrong rather than looking at the things that went right.
“I suspect that the ones who feels the pinch most are the people in the middle. Not the CEOs, not the people from the bottom but the people who get it from both ends. They will tell you, that the fear of failure is probably bigger than the feeling of success, joy, and euphoria that goes with doing it right,” she said. “When you get dumped, you feel the worst in the world. You start asking yourself, you start all of these negative assessment. It’s about learning to turn it on its head.”
