2 day strategic marketing masterclass for £75
Many small businesses today are started and run by enterprising people who have a flare for the business that they start. This may be a printers, sign writer, IT Company, cleaning company the type of business is not important but what’s important is the type of person that starts it. This person is typically someone who is talented within their industry however there is one characteristic that is usually lacking and that is marketing. A huge amount of small businesses either do not market themselves or the marketing that they do is not effective or targeted. This is generally because of limited budgets as most small businesses do not have massive marketing budgets as most of the business is run on cash flow. Well there’s good news!
One of our fellow BNI members has put together a 2 day Strategic Marketing Masterclass which is perfect for small businesses. The masterclass will cover a variety of topics such as tools and techniques for analysing their business environment, objective setting, evaluation of different marketing tools, implementation planning and measuring key performance indicators. The course is suitable for any team member that wants to have a structured approach to business growth or who may be relatively new to marketing. Upon completion of the course each learner will have an accurate and relevant marketing plan to implement within their business. The marketing plan will be an action plan to ensure their commercial objectives are met for 2009. By attending this course, businesses have a much more cost effective method of obtaining strategic focus than hiring in a 3rd party which can cost thousands of pounds in consultancy fees. There will be options for post-masterclass
support to ensure that the newly produced marketing plan is being implemented and remains relevant to their business. Masterclasses will be held across April, May and June 2009. The course will be delivered in a Nottingham training facility where refreshments and lunch will be served on both days. Specific details of location, times etc will be issued in the learner packs sent to you. All learning material will be provided. The course is priced at £650 per learner (excluding VAT) with the option of group discounts. If you have 2-249 employees and have not had previous Leaders First Training you might be eligible for Business Link support. If you are eligible for funding you will receive a £575 contribution towards the cost of the course. Kirsty will arrange for Business Link to call you and allocate the funding. If you are eligible for funding you will be reimbursed by Business Link for the amount that you are entitled to. You will be asked to pay the full amount up front then you will receive the £575 reimbursement from Business Link.
The means that if you are eligible the course will cost just £75 + VAT, if you would like to know more then please contact rob.franklin@jpt-solutions.co.uk.
What is “Cloud Computing”?
There has been a great deal of talk recently about cloud computing and that it is the way that all computing is headed, but not many people understand what it is. Essentially speaking cloud computing is about putting certain software applications in the “cloud”. This is a phrase which is used to describe the internet based on how it is typically shown in network diagrams.
So what does cloud computing bring that was not there before?
What cloud computing brings is the ability for small businesses to run applications which typically can only be afforded by larger businesses. This is made possible by having low start-up costs. For example we have started providing hosted Microsoft Exchange 2007 which gives 10GB of storage, ExchangeDefender spam filtering, Microsoft Sharepoint, Microsoft Forefront which costs £10 per mailbox per month. For a small business of 3 users this would mean a monthly cost of £30, giving an annual cost of £360 for the three users. If you compare this with the cost of a typical Microsoft Small Business server entry level cost of approx £1,000 plus installation of around £750 then hosted applications make more sense.
What other benefits are there?
With hosted application you are able to access your application regardless of location which means that any of the users can work so long as they have an internet connection, given the rapid growth of communications this means users can work from almost anywhere. Also with hosted application the provider typically will take care of backups so it is no longer your worry.
Whether it is suitable for your business is an individual decision based on your needs. If you would like to discuss this further please feel free to contact us for a free consultation.
Business Continuity
We are please to announce that after rigorous testing we have now launched our latest Business Continuity Solution, to find out more information about this advanced solutions please click here.
Always on the go
Society is becoming more “always on” than ever. Since the introduction of SMS or text messaging the growth of non-verbal communication has exploded. This movement then spawned a massive growth in the on-demand culture which naturally progressed into mobile email. One of the first methods of achieving this was with the Windows Mobile devices. The early models worked on a “pull” architecture whereby the device had a collection schedule such as every 15 minutes at which it polled and collected new emails, then came the BlackBerry. This device revolutionised the mobile email market as it was now possible to have your email “pushed” to you which meant that when an email arrived in your mailbox it was immediately pushed, via the Blackberry network, out to your portable device so you could deal with it immediately. The device was also unique in that you can remotely wipe it, which meant that if it was lost or stolen then you could ask your network admin to remotely wipe the device clean. This feature alone had massive appeal to government bodies, the legal profession, medial profession etc who would potentially have confidential data on the device. More recently, following an update for Microsoft Exchange Server, the Windows Mobile was able to offer the same features as the BlackBerry but without the need for additional software that was needed for the corporate BlackBerry. Other noteworthy manufactures able to achieve “push” email is Nokia, with “Mail for Exchange” and more recently the new Apple iPhone 3G.
But with all of this technology available to ensure that you are never out of contact whether it be voice calls, SMS or even email the question remains; Do you need it? This is something we have been asked many times and the answer is always the same; “Do you need it? Only you can decide”. What is clear is that it’s now more affordable than ever for anyone to have this technology at their fingertips. No longer is it the reserve of the large corporate environments it’s something that the Owner/Manager’s and Small Businesses can enjoy which in turn can help them to become more streamlined and agile in a fragile marketplace where an instant response can make all the difference. If you would like to know more about mobile email solutions please contact our team for more information.
Business Continuity
There is a great deal of talk about business continuity whether it be from the insurers of the business or from other members of the business community. The ethos behind business continuity is about working out how to stay in business in the event of a disaster. Incidents such as building fires, flooding, equipment failure etc all of these events should be planned for and the risks mitigated by putting in place documentation and processes which will ensure that such events do not permanently damage the business. Many small businesses owners do not look at business continuity as it appears to be the reserve of much larger companies and does not apply to them, wrong. The fact is that for your business was to suffer a complete disaster then how would you recover from this and indeed could you currently recover from this situation? Chances are the answer is no. Is this something that you can afford? Yes
The fact is that you cannot afford not to put this in plan. So what does the plan consist of; well it should contain the contact names and numbers of all individuals involved in the recovery
process (i.e. Telephone company, IT vendor, software suppliers etc). It also needs to contain all relevant passwords relating to your computer systems, details relating to the setup of the network and software. It should detail the recovery process for data relating to the network this should include how the backups are performed and what software is required to perform the recovery. The plan needs to contain absolutely everything that is required to run the business and with the recent floods and other adverse weather conditions it has never been more important to plan for the worst. So take some time and think about how your business will be affected should the worst happen and start and plan how you will recover from such and event before it happens.
New style training
Most people that you meet today know how to use a computer, more over most kids are being taught far more that many adults are. I recently spoke to a friend of mine who told me that their son was choosing his subjects for school and among them was such things as DTP, website design etc. Now from a kids point of view it’s truly great as they are able to leave school with a wealth of knowledge that many of us had unavailable. The other thing that happens as a result is more and more people are having PC’s at home and often their kids are showing them how to use them. In business terms that is a great leap forward as more employee’s are able to us PC’s which means that businesses are having to spend less on training them.
The down side to all of this is that by not having been on courses there is a great deal of functionality that people are missing out on, a classic example is being able to do mail merges in Word or graphs in Excel; so whats the answer? I was speaking to one of our partners recently, Andy from F1rst I.T., about this and what they have created is surgeries. The idea behind this is that a business does not but a course per delegate but instead they buy a “drop in” workshop where their employee’s can go to the surgery with a specific question or problem and spend 20 minutes or so with a certified Microsoft Office Trainer who is able to provide specific training on their particular issue. Now this is a fantastic idea as this provides highly cost effective support (as little as £12.50 per person) but it is also specific training for a specific question. So if anyone is interested in learning more then please contact us or alternately contact Andy on 0115 926 2078 or email him at andyhardy@f1rstit.co.uk
Disaster recovery
As you will all be aware in the early hours of the 27th Feb 2008 an earthquake struck the UK with the epicentre being located at Market Rasen measuring 5.2 on the Richter Scale, much damage was done and business was affected as a result of this. So what would happen to your business if it was stuck at the centre of such an event? How prepared would you be to relocate the business and re-route services so that you can continue trading? The answer is probably that you are unsure, this is perfectly natural…..We can help.
We help businesses to create a Disaster Recover plan that will help create a safety net should the worst happen to the business. To find out more then please click here.
Managed Services
We are proud to announce the launch of our best ever IT support solution for businesses. Our Managed Services package allows us to provide the most comprehensive level of cover by using full desktop and server monitor system which gives us information on system key metrics. This allows us to undertake the role of your internal IT support team at a fraction of the cost. For more information please visit the Managed Service page.
