Hattaways is dedicated to helping businesses achieve better credit management results which can be broadly defined as "more money collected" and "fewer customers upset by the process".
Hattaway & Associates was founded 1993, in Christchurch, New Zealand, by Peter Hattaway. Initially working only in New Zealand, since 1998 Hattaways has done about half its business in Australia. While major assignments are often, in practice, a mix of consulting and training work, on the whole, the consulting arm of Hattaways has tended to take a back seat to the training business. Hattaways does not market its consulting services aggressively - most of our business is as a result of customers contacting us with a need.
Typically, our consulting work comes when senior managers, (managers with sufficient budget at their disposal, and not too much ego involvement in the matter), realise that there is a problem which the business is struggling to solve on its own. In most cases, the business will have used Hattaways for credit management training over the years so we are a logical choice. Since 1993, credit management has been our sole focus: no other firm of professional advisors knows as much about credit and collection as we do.
In 2008, our consulting business has been much more active than in previous years. The disruption to the world's economy caused by the 2007 credit crunch in the US housing market has meant that, in many businesses, senior managers and boards of directors are taking a much closer interest in credit management matters. In normal times, CFOs and CEOs may feel they can ignore credit management. At the moment, they generally know they can't.
The business has traded under a corporate entity, Hattaway & Associates Ltd, since 2000. Hattaways does not generally carry out debt collection work (though exceptions might be made where very large amounts are at stake), nor provide credit reports.