Becoming president and CEO of GTECH Corp., a global leader in gaming technology and services, was a natural evolution for Jaymin Patel, who took the position on Jan. 1. During the past 14 years, Patel has worked his way through a series of increasingly responsible positions at the company. Most recently he worked with former GTECH President and CEO Bruce Turner on the sale of GTECH to Lottomatica S.p.A., and on several other growth strategies..
Now,Patel is guiding the company into what he thinks will be a very profitable 2008, with recent acquisitions such as Atronic, the Germany-based casino gaming-machine company, under his belt and more on the way.
PBN: Why did you take the position as president and CEO of GTECH in January?
PATEL: I had always hoped and planned that one day I would be able to run the company. I’d been trained for it. I worked very closely with [former CEO] Bruce Turner. We worked together on all of the growth strategies in the company, and it was always my goal to eventually take over when Bruce wanted to retire.
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PBN: Is the recent acquisition of Sweden-based Boss Media AB, a software developer for Internet gaming, an element of GTECH’s growth strategy?
PATEL: To give you perspective on how we think about Boss Media … we are today a global business. We generate about $1.2 billion of revenue and that revenue is split $550 million in our U.S. lottery business and approximately $500 million in our international lottery business. And then we have a gaming business that’s roughly $100 million of revenue and that’s suddenly grown because of the acquisition of Atronic, which will be in 2008’s performance.
PBN: So when did you start focusing on the Internet gaming market?
PATEL: In recent months we felt it was important to gain presence in the growing interactive markets. Interactive markets are largely based overseas in Europe and Asia where legalized Internet gambling exists. In the United States it’s illegal to wager over the Internet. … What we’re finding is that Internet wagering is becoming a very significant growth engine in the gaming markets because young people … like to play on the Internet as opposed to [buying] a lottery ticket in a physical environment.
PBN: Why do young people like online games as opposed to lottery tickets?
PATEL: Interactive games are typically more exciting. They have a lot more content to them, a lot more fun to them. Prize-payout ratios, the amounts you return back to players, [are] typically higher. And they’re high-frequency games, so you play them rapidly as opposed to buying a ticket from a store and waiting for a draw once or twice per week.
PBN: Are these interactive Internet games similar to what you would find in a casino?
PATEL: Yes … Boss Media has several. It has a technology platform that offers three types of main games … bingo, poker and a suite of casino games.
PBN: Why did you purchase Boss Media?
PATEL: First of all it is a high growth sector in the gaming industry and my objective is to grow this business, make it larger, make it more profitable for our shareholders and most importantly protect our core business by having these add-on businesses that I think are very close to our core business. If you don’t invest in these newer areas, these newer areas begin to encroach on your core business and make it weaker, so it’s important that you keep building your business.
PBN: How does this play into what your goals and priorities are for the company?
PATEL: My No. 1 objective is to help our customers grow because when we help our customers grow we grow by definition. … In the U.S. market we’re really working to … help our customers to optimize the retail environment, because for many years in this country lottery has been sold through a certain number of shops in the state … In order to grow lottery sales we have to be in more stores.
PBN: How do you get into more stores?
PATEL: We’re developing technologies to be able to help our customers expand retail distribution to drive new sales and one way of doing that is to enter into partnerships with big box retailers. … It would be nice to get a Wal-Mart. It would be nice to get a Target … to actually roll out lottery, but roll out lottery within their existing point of sale as opposed to a separate lottery terminal. The cash register. … There’s no reason why it can’t have a lottery application sitting in it.
PBN: Is that a challenge?
PATEL: That’s not easy because you have to convince the big box retailers like Wal-Mart that it makes sense to sell lottery at each lane or in a kiosk in the store and it takes some convincing because you have to integrate the lottery system to their back office. So it’s not as easy as it seems.
PBN: What operational challenges does GTECH face?
PATEL: We have challenges of growing the business … challenges of recruiting employees that are qualified in these disciplines to help us grow. But I really think we are entering a good time for GTECH and its customers despite the fact that there is imminent economic weakness. •
interview: Jaymin Patel
Position: president and CEO of GTECH Corp.
Background: Patel started working at GTECH in 1994 as the company’s finance director of European and African operations in London, after working at PricewaterhouseCoopers for five years. He then became the company’s vice president of financial planning and business evaluation. From 2000 to 2007, Patel served as senior vice president and CFO of GTECH Corp. From August 2006 to April 2007 he was also CFO of Lottomatica S.p.A. Patel became the president and COO of GTECH in May and CEO on Jan. 1.
Education: B.A . in accountancy, Birmingham Polytechnic, Birmingham, England, 1989; chartered accountant program, PricewaterhouseCoopers, London, England, 1993
Residence:
Providence
Age: 40
