M & A Rainmaker

How to achieve customer business transformation using Cisco technology and 5i methodology

Define your customers’ collaboration strategy – Transform their business (and yours)

Collaboration has become critical in a world where employees can be anywhere, travel budgets are tight, and information overload is ‘normal’.

Cisco’s latest solutions represent a major breakthrough in the capabilities of technology to transform business, but to ensure success, your customers need an effective collaboration strategy.

5i’s unrivalled experience in designing and deploying Cisco-based collaboration solutions has taught us a thing or two about making technology work to deliver business benefit – and we’d like to share them with you and your customers.

Here’s the simple 6 Step approach to driving the optimal value from your customers’ collaboration strategy:

1.Identify the value. Team members must understand the value they are expected to deliver, whether it’s increasing revenue or moving into a new market.

2.Link it to business strategies. Collaborations that are aligned to corporate strategy deliver the greatest value.

3.Select team players who are engaging, creative, and expert. Team members must be excited and optimistic about the project and bring a unique expertise.

4.Build trust. More important than employees trusting their managers is co-workers trusting each other.

5.Define business processes. Great collaborators require flexibility creating processes that are unique to their role in the collaboration. Each team member should have a specific responsibility and the opportunity and incentive to improve the process.

6.Employ technology that is flexible and secure. Collaborators need to communicate securely and flexibly. Virtual interactions can be just as effective as face-to-face meetings when they support preferred working styles and provide a valuable contact.

For a FREE introductory assessment of your customer’s collaborative potential, delivered via our proven partnering model that maximises your margin and project quality call 01189 885558 or email sales@5i.co.uk

For more information about 5i go to http://www.5i.co.uk

Perhaps you should consider having an Inbound ( Internet ) Marketing Assessment

as I did yesterday if you are a website owner.

However, if you don’t believe that effort put into ensuring that your website is found, designed for qualified traffic and able to convert leads is worthwhile then maybe you should not bother !!

It’s one of those situations where the early adopters and open minded people only need apply.

Hubspot ( who provide the Inbound Internet Marketing Assessment ) say that in 2009 2 million people visited thier website which generated 160,000 sales leads which converted into 1,000 customers.

Visitors, leads,customers. That’s what we are after really isn’t it ??

One of the problems that some companies have at the moment is that they don’t actually believe that a website can deliver real leads and customers.

Now, I am the first to say that not everyone is on the Internet and therefore influenced by it and certainly not all of those people are avid social networkers so you have to keep your traditional marketing, word of mouth marketing and database marketing going however you also have to fully embrace the fact that websites DO provide leads and customers IF they are designed correctly and promoted using blogs and social media.

You can find Hubspot here

http://www.hubspot.com/

and you can get an Inbound Marketing Assessment by clicking on the button that you will see there.

If you are looking for advice on Corporate Finance and M&A in the Birmingham area then take a look at the M&A Rainmaker website for practical help and information

Having started a Midlands based ICT business ( Voyager Networks ) in 1993 and sold in 1999/2000 Chris Windley went on to invest in a number of High Tech and other businesses with varying degrees of success. Last year he successfully sold one of these, 5i Limited, to Impera plc ( renamed 365iT plc ) which is currently on a buy and build strategy.

Following this sale, at one of the worst times in economic history and the earlier sale of Voyager ( at one of the best times for High Tech in history ) he documented the sales process used in both sales on the M&A Rainmaker website.

This has been added to with practical information about investing in businesses, marketing businesses and running the salesforces in businesses.

If you are looking at buying Cisco Telephone Systems in Dorchester Dorset

then I highly recommend that you talk to Clare at Poundbury Systems on 01305 259849.

I have been in the business to business information technology industry for more than 20 years and specifically I have been involved in the Cisco Systems community since around 1993 when I started the national Cisco Gold Partner Voyager Networks. I have known Clare and her husband and business partner Mike since then.

If you are a Small or Medium Business in the Dorchester or Dorset area Poundbury provide computer and telephony systems and related software, hardware and networks to small and medium sized businesses. They have many years of experience of doing so and are technically very competent.

They aim to use plain English wherever possible rather than technical jargon and they focus on what technology can do for your business.

Many of thier customers have confirmed that they live up to thier philosophy and objectives and you will find their testimonials in thier news section.

Please contact them for clear, simple advice on how to make technology work for you.

You can find out more about Poundbury Systems by visiting thier website http://www.poundbury.com/ or buy calling 01305 259849 and asking for Clare.

You can find out more about me by Googling my name.

comprehensive i-technology media site

http://www.sys-con.com/

Great website for Tech Sector Intel.

http://www.megabuyte.com/

A website with updates on M&A deals and activity

http://www.mandadeals.co.uk/

Identifying which cloud computing solution best fits your business.

A team is a group of two or more people working together to accomplish a task. With the explosion of knowledge in the information age and the greater interdependence of different work groups, it has become clear that team members need to work together more effectively to accomplish tasks

In the past, many organisations have emphasised the interactions between managers and employees; the challenge for the future lies in the interactions among employees as equals (i.e., on teams). These teams may be cross-functional in nature and will operate without the benefit of a built-in hierarchy. Thus, team members may be less certain of their respective roles. The challenge is to help team members manage these roles and contribute to the team using their own unique strengths.

Individuals and teams need to know their strengths – do we prefer to analyse, organise, socialise or conceptualise, most of us have two or more preferences. We are all motivated and stimulated by engaging our preferences.

Focus on your strengths and have plan to manage your weaknesess if they affect the productivity of the group.

For example: how many of us know the stalling speed of a Jumbo 747 ?

“I guess if you are the captain or the first officer it’s important – however for most of us it’s a knowledge weakness that if it dosn’t effect the productivity of the group then the strategy would be to ignore it”.

Much time, money and effort is spent every year on training on peoples weaknesess with very little permanent improvement in productivity.

Focus on your strengths and you will be well rewarded.

Richard Spooner – Sales Coach

Working together as a team is often key to the success of a particular task, had you ever thought what part our own ‘persona’ plays in the overall team success.
Our persona represents our public image. The word is, obviously, related to the words person and personality and comes from a latin word for mask.

So the persona is the mask you put on before you show yourself to the outside world. Although it begins as an archetype, by the time we are finished realising it, it is the part of us most distant from the collective unconscious

At its best, it is just the “good impression” we all wish to present as we fill the roles society requires of us. But, of course , it can also be the “false impression” we use to manipulate people’s opinions and behaviours, and, at its worst, it can be mistaken, even by ourselves, for our true nature: Sometimes we believe we really are what we pretend to be !

That’s food for thought……..

Richard Spooner – Sales Coach