How will you be celebrating Christmas? While some will argue that the true meaning has been overtaken by commercial interests, it remains a very special time of the year. It's a time when people travel long distances to spend time with family, exchange gifts with those they love and eat large quantities of festive food. If you have children there will be trips to see Santa, visits to the theatre to see a pantomime and the thrill of Christmas morning when they open the presents.
When they finally submit to emotional and physical exhaustion many parents will relax and enjoy a traditional Christmas film while mulling over the previous year and plans for the future. A favourite in our house is It's a Wonderful Life, a heart warming tale (as long as you ignore the fact that two assaults a theft and a serious case of drunk driving go unpunished and the hero steals his best friend's girlfriend) where all ends well and they end up singing Auld Lang Sine.
For those of us in business the holiday period provides the ideal opportunity to pause and reflect on what we have achieved and how we see things going in the future. It is a time to recognise the efforts of our colleagues and successful partnerships with our clients. It's also a time to think how we can work harder together to enhance existing relationships and develop new ones.
So before I get too emotional I'll admit to considering myself lucky on the home and work fronts. What I will share is that one of the things that drives me is being part of a great team in a company that has a clear vision of the future, playing a key role in what for me is the most exciting industry. It's an industry where you can see the benefits - not just the efficiencies - that can be achieved by our clients but also the improvements in service that make consumers' lives easier, whether at a bank branch or a retail outlet, now and into the future.
Christmas is a time to look back as well as forward. As a company with a hundred years of tradition, working with clients in over a hundred countries there is much to reflect on but the focus, as always, is on securing the future. Merry Christmas. Let's work together to ensure a Prosperous New Year.
