60 Seconds with...Tim Hague

12 July 2010

What’s the idea behind Sagis?
It’s basically a bunch of industry professionals who have fantastic records but have previously been working in a single-discipline environment. Sagis represents an opportunity to bring all those disciplines together, from marketing and sales to compliance and technology, and build a proposition that best satisfies the needs of clients.

Who is involved?
Several familiar faces are on board including Martin Reynolds, Francis Mogg, Jeff Knight, Ian Giles and Jonathan Cornell, and then some terrific people who usually operate behind the scenes - professionals readers might not have heard of in fields such as IT, finance and HR.

What’s your specific role in the company?
My main role involves identifying potential clients, understanding their needs and assembling the best teams to deliver those requirements. But with 20 years of product marketing experience and as a former managing director of BM Solutions I’ve got a lot of knowledge in the sales and marketing field too.

What are the main areas brokers could improve on?
It’s not up to us to say that a whole load of firms need to strip out costs in their businesses and ensure that they are more efficient, although we have a vast amount of experience in that department.
The feedback we have been getting recently indicates that many brokers are reasonably bullish about the future and they now need help with planning for 2011 and beyond. The problem a lot of professionals have is that having streamlined their businesses they now have limited resources available, so some need some help in that regard.

What types of market issues could your services address?
The hot topic at the moment is fraud but we’re not only about addressing that. Our firm is designed to be adaptable for any common issue such as the Mortgage Market Review, the Retail Distribution Review, balance sheet management, funding strategy, new revenue streams, IT platforms and compliance.

It’s about the industry working together and we have good working relationships with distributors and lenders, so we believe we’re well placed to come up with intelligent solutions.

Interview by Robert Thickett