Chapter 12: Reorganization

Prudence walked into the conference room with the others, pausing to chat with Neo-Tantra's top management. Like many members of the Neo-Tantra staff, she wore a brightly colored pareo low on her hips. She'd adopted the habit from her instructors during her indoctrination. Spending a lot of time in the safety of the Home meant her knife and the freedom of movement conferred by a kilt would not be needed. The casual atmosphere allowed her to indulge her love of jewelry, and she wore one of her growing collection of necklaces. She chatted with her colleagues briefly before taking her place at the table next to Terry Sideman. Most of them were clad in the usual kilts.

She had completed the intensive, second-level Neo-Tantra course following her vacation and had begun using her training during the weeks since. Today, she could feel the camaraderie in the room, as well as the undercurrents of tension and concern in each of the participants. She had met all of them during her travels, but this was her first exposure to them as a group.

Terry began the meeting. "You all know that Pru has been through the Neo-Tantra intensive course, and spent some time getting acquainted with the company here at the home office. She's also spent a while visiting our country offices to see what goes on there. I've seen her report and asked her to present it to all of you because I think she's got something. I want you to see this and then we can all discuss it.' He gestured to Pru.

Pru keyed her remote, and the images of her presentation began to appear on the big com screen as she spoke.

"I still have a lot to learn about how Neo-Tantra operates," she began, "but when I joined, I wanted to get around and see what we're doing — really doing — in the field. I visited our major field offices around the world, as well as the Central and Pacific CAs here in North America. I have some ideas to share with you.

"Let me point out that the work Neo-Tantra does for the OSG is fairly well known to me. That is, I've been briefed on it, and our effectiveness in that work was one of the things I was looking at. But, the more important part of my trip was to see how viable our marketing and delivery of Neo-Tantra is at the point of sale. And also, to get an estimate of the effectiveness of our teaching.

"To summarize my findings, we're good at what we do. Customer satisfaction is high: we get a lot of repeat business from customers returning to take advanced courses. And, you already know that.

"Our revenues from North America are consistently above expectations, as you know, John." She nodded toward the Vice President for North American Operations. "And, our International Operations, Rebecca, also show strong and consistent growth.

"I didn't need to do all that traveling to find that much out. I'm sure you're aware of that. It was clear from my initial research here at Home Office once I completed the course and came on board.

"No, what I was looking for in my travels was more for a sense of how well we are meeting the challenges for growth in the marketplace around the world. That's where I found some things to think about.

"We have offices in 15 countries, with more than 600 centers in all, most of them in North America, where we are showing excellent growth. That sounds respectable on the face of it, but I think we are missing the boat in many ways.

"Outside North America, our offices are mostly in countries or areas where there is trouble of one kind or another, mainly terrorism and ethnic or religious trouble. You all know that's because of our work for OSG. Yes, we have offices in different EU national areas where terror is a remote issue, but they represent a fairly small part of our commitment. We're not particularly aggressive there, either. Same with China and Japan. The Russian operation suffers from the size of the country and the relatively small extent of Controlled Areas there compared with the space involved. Central and Southern Asia are much the same, although in Southern Asia the scarcity of CAs is due more to climate and the needs of recreational areas where climate control runs against the recreation and tourist industries. Overall, I think there are two things wrong with this picture.

"First, this distribution, or marketing emphasis, if you prefer, means we are not bringing Neo-Tantra to foreign markets where we can really make significant revenue and profits. Our profit structure is too heavily based on North America."

She turned to Terry. "When you started Neo-Tantra, you concentrated on North America. When OSG got involved, you began to open offices in response to needs they expressed." She turned back to the rest. "But, now we can see that, while the OSG may continue to ask for coverage in trouble spots, we need to put more of our focus on the bottom line. It is in the OSG's interest — not to mention our own — for us to be a profitable and strong company for the long term. We need to be in a position where we do not depend as a company on the revenue that OSG provides to support our intelligence activities." A hand went up. It was the Director of European Operations.