M & A Rainmaker

Which Business Networking Meeting is the best in Birmingham at the moment ??

I take a trip to the Grosvenor Casino on Rebecca Hyslop’s recommendation to try out this networking event and find it very interesting and professional

I have not been to a networking meeting for some time ( I think the last one was in Burton on Trent a couple of months ago ) and certainly the Business Biscotti meeting at the Grosvenor Casino on Broad Street in Birmingham was the first networking meeting that I have been to in Birmingham for a year or more.

I was introduced to Biscotti by Rebecca Hyslop of Push Media Marketing who runs a number of networking meetings in Birmingham.

I very rarely go to Casino’s so that was also a novelty to me( I think the last one was in Biarritz ).

I hoped that the meeting was going to be more fun than formal – obviously productive aswell – and knowing Rebecca I was pretty sure that it would be.

Online research prior to arriving at the Biscotti meeting indicated that although there was a website, social media activity appeared limited. The Biscotti name piqued my curiousity but I have only just found out that the name is based on the first meeting where Biscotti biscuits were made and served.

I parked in The Nautical Club just down the road and walked around to Broad Street and the entrance of the Grosvenor Casino.

The receptionist was absolutely lovely and I proffered photo id in order to get a Casino card. The receptionist phoned down for the Manager, Paul Bradford, to meet me.

I met him at the bottom of the stairs leading onto the Casino floor and he led me to the group that was assembled, chatting at the bar area.

With Rebecca, the receptionist and Paul I had definitely had a very professional and positive introduction to this networking meeting.

The first person that Paul, very kindly, introduced me to had actually seen me speaking at an event in Marco Pierre White’s recently – so that was a great start.That was Glenn Richardson of Photo Booth Hire.

A chat with someone else and then an introduction to someone who turned out to be with Mattioli Woods – where I am a client !!!! Bit of a surprise and an opportunity to praise them a bit – my account manager there has been brilliant actually.

I loved meeting next with Raphael from HNS Signs – a company that I had come across on twitter during #lichfieldlocal hour run by Sarah Morley. Raphael gave me his bosses card, Michelle Henry, and a lovely booklet promoting their work.

As I get into this post I am thinking about who I met, and what made them memorable and what contact information I came away with. Later on I will say who contacted me and how.

My primary interest is what people are doing online. Their ” Internet Presence ” as I call it. ( A combination of web/blogsite and social media accounts ).

I then met Personal Trainer John Wang ( 07795437716 ) who it turned out had seen me at a Market United Kingdom presentation. Someone at John’s gym was an Unfranchise Owner. ( Actually franchises were much in evidence in this meeting ).

Whilst sipping a glass of water Mike Bowden walked over to chat. ( I am grateful to Rebecca Hyslop for doing a tweet after the meeting that contained Mike’s contact details as well as other peoples ). As well as being a Life Coach Mike was a martial arts practitioner and I go to a Kick Boxing class at Burton Kick Boxing Academy with Chris Squirrel so we had something in common there.

On coming to chat to Rebecca ( and the lady from Best of Birmingham who kindly looked after my laptop bag and coat and another lady from Grosvenor Casino’s ) I got into a conversation with Tom West from Central Telecomms. and Richard Murphy from Bank House Corporate. My background is in Telecomms and M & A so this was an interesting conversation.

I decided to leave after that as it was Remembrance Day and I wanted to spend some time at The Nautical Club and The National Memorial Arboretum.

I should point out that I was given 6 business cards but I didn’t give out any as is my approach of late.

Tom West from Central Telecomms. was the first person to contact me ( by twitter and Linkedin ) and he didn’t have any of my details so I was most impressed with this response. Later on he sent me information on the company. Stellar responsiveness !!!!

Rebecca did a tweet after the event that included ( probably ) every person that had a twitter account that she knew who was at the meeting. This was very useful.

After connecting with people there I had a few conversations.

I also established email communications with Michelle and Raphael at HNS Signs – they just look so well sorted as a company.

All in all this was a great event with some great people at it and I would recommend to anyone ( as I am doing here ).

It is fantastic news that Staffordshire C.C. has decided to invest in Superfast Broadband for the Lichfield and Burntwood area as highlighted in the blog on Lichfield Live here:

http://lichfieldlive.co.uk/2012/04/15/broadband-speed-boost-as-staffordshire-investment-scheme-is-approved/

There’s a good blog here, on Staffordshire IT’s website which describes the sort of improvements that ” Superfast Broadband ” can bring to Internet speeds:

http://www.staffordshireit.co.uk/fibre-broadband/

This whole idea of improving the internet infrastructure complements my own thoughts on the promotion of ” Silicon Crossroads ” ( as I have dubbed it ). ” Silicon Something ” has become a global brandname for a High Tech. area. Probably the most famous is ” Silicon Valley ” in California in the United States. Here in the U.K. we have ” Silicon Roundabout ” ( London ), ” Silicon Fen ” ( Cambridge ) and Silicon Glen ( Scotland ) to name a few. The Irish refer to the whole country as ” Silicon Ireland ” or the ” Silicon Republic “. Well, the Irish are probably one of the most successful European nations to take advantage of the development and expansion of High Tech. companies out of the U.S. and into Europe.

Whilst we hear a lot about High Tech. companies being located in London actually these are mainly relatively small ” sales offices ” and the bulk of the administration and development people are located in Ireland and perhaps Belgium or Luxembourg for “tax” reasons.

One thing is for sure: High Tech. companies in Silicon Valley are beginning to struggle to find the talent that they need. They have to look to other parts of the U.S. and abroad to find that talent. In a recent conversation that I had with a Silicon Valley based C.E.O. of a High Tech. startup he said that he would be looking across the U.S. to where his ” alma mater ” ( his old University ) was based and also to Argentina.

High Tech. startup  http://hootsuite.com/ recently highlighted that what had initially appeared to be a negative factor in their startup profile ( to venture capitalists and angels ) – being based in Vancouver – had turned out to be a blessing in disguise because they were able to find hot local talent at bargain prices and that talent didn’t want to go anywhere else.

Silicon Valley took a long time ( 30-50 years ? ) to get to where it is today. Arguably the preeminent startup location in all the world. Talent runs deep in Silicon Valley as this blog highlights:

http://medriscoll.com/post/9117396231/the-guild-of-silicon-valley

The software engineers that are ACTUALLY building the products that we now know about over here – Google, Apple, Facebook, Twitter etc etc are a secretive bunch and their wants and needs are probably different to a lot of people’s.

Internet ( communications ) infrastructure is going to be high up on their list though – from work AND from home AND in between.

According to this blog:

http://www.santaclaraweekly.com/2012/Issue-16/the_right_stuff_santa_clara_infrastructure_foundation_for_todays_stadium.html

The ” Holy Trinity ” that set Santa Clara to be the right location for High Tech. growth was:

“Gillmor calls that infrastructure the city’s “holy trinity of success:” city-owned land and electricity, and strategic use of redevelopment funding.”

More specifically what made Santa Clara such a great location was the road infrastructure; the electrical power strategy and the general utility provision  ( electric transmission, water and sewer lines – to be built in advance of development ). This when combined with a financial strategy ( bonds being sold to finance development which increased in value dramatically after developers built ) led to Silicon Valleys success.

The story of Silicon Valley is a blueprint for success for Silicon Crossroads. Many of the component parts are already in place and Superfast Broadband is another one of those key infrastructure pieces.

From where I sit near Burton-on-Trent nothing much has changed in ICT and Telecommunications solutions for 10 Years or so. Rubbish you might say – loads of things have changed. Part of my problem is that Voyager Networks – the company that I sold in 2000 – was way ahead of it’s time. We were a Voice over IP provider when it really was a new thing ( In fact I remember Cisco buying Celsius – whose equipment we were already using – to build some of the first VoIP systems ). We were a Managed Network Services Provider when it was a nightmare to be one ( by this I mean that there were all sorts of ” New Telco’s ” claiming to be ” better than BT ” when in fact they were much much worse. ( The problem was that we had to try them before we could find this out ). We had a ” Network Operations Centre ” ( NOC ) when this was a really cool thing to have – it even had a ” Bridge ” – and it also had some super cool software ( InfoVista ) to ” pro-actively manage our customer’s networks “.

We were only able to build and run these Managed Networks because we had some really great technical people who overcame all the technical issues that arose from being a leading edge Data Networking and Telecommunications Solutions Provider.

In fact the world has got a lot simpler in the last 10-15 years – nobody really disputes the fact that VoIP is the way to go. All the main ” telephone systems ” companies are now VoIP Solutions providers ( well actually they are Unified Communications providers having been Converged Solutions providers along the way ). Most of those Telcos are now dead and gone. ” Consolidation ” has happened big time in the Telecommunications Provider market. Network and device management software has got better and cheaper.

A look from Burton on Trent at my old companies website http://www.voyager.net.uk/partners/ serves to emphasize what I am saying – hardly anything has changed ! All of these products and services/solutions  http://www.voyager.net.uk/solutions/ were there years ago. The only hint of a change is in ” Mobility “.

A look at 365iT’s website is the same http://www.365itservices.co.uk/ ( 365iT bought 5i Limited a few years ago ). Can we find ANYTHING different ?? The only thing that stands out for me is ” Virtualization “. Server virtualization is a pretty hot area with VMware being a hot stock  http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomtaulli/2012/03/23/3-stock-picks-from-tech-ceos/ .

With nothing having changed I think one thing is certain – competition is fierce !! Which means price erosion.

If we look at Node4’s website http://www.node4.co.uk/ ( Node4 are Headquartered in Derby ) there is an indication of one of the main changes that have happened – Cloud computing. Words like ” Hosting ” and ” Co-location ” are prevalent on the Node4 website. Virtualization is also there.

In this article http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/vmware-cto-virtualization-is-swiss-army-knife-of-it/72151 Virtualization, Cloud Computing and BYOD ( Bring your own Device ) are the areas mentioned as being important by corporate, Revlon.

I think the real clue as where ICT and Telecommunications is going is in the phrase ” Any information, anywhere, on any device, at any time ” and the challenges that this brings both to the user ( who will have multiple communications streams coming through to whatever device they are using – more of which soon )   and also in the types of information and data that the user is accessing.

The drive to achieve this level of communication is what will drive and shape the infrastructure and Telecommunications solutions requirements.

Many companies are in denial over the use of social media ( and I am greatly amused by this as it seems to me that company management have not read or remembered their – recent – history. In our memory people have refused to accept that the personal computer would become ubiquitous, the mobile phone, emailing, texting etc etc and of course they have grown to be huge industries. Perhaps when Facebook IPO’s for $75-100 Million in the next month or so some management will start to take it and other Social Networks seriously ).

Personally I think that people will use social ( and social business ) applications alongside corporate applications and so for example the stream of communications to their smartphone, iPad and Laptop will include the ” Unified Communications bit ” ( voice calls, text and email ) and the ” Social Media bit ” and this will require the integration and control of all of those streams. Of course this is already happening for many people and it happened with the smartphone first – as looking at my Blackberry demonstrates – Messages, Text/SMS, Calendar, Phone, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Google+ etc etc.

As Revlon chief information officer David Giambruno says this demand for information drives certain infrastructure elements -e.g.  virtualized server farms, security to protect those servers, storage farms for the all the data – including back-up data, smartphone and iPad compatible applications N.B. The rise of companies like http://www.apperian.com/ who specialize in ” Mobile Application Management “.

Telecommunications solutions will be driven by the need to fulfill our desire for ” Anything, Everywhere ” communications.

Chris Windley, Burton on Trent.

Poundbury Systems of Poundbury, Dorchester is offering local companies advice and support on the pros and cons of Cloud Computing alongside its general computer, telephony and network support offerings.

” Cloud Computing ” is a term that gets mentioned quite often these days, usually accompanied by various general benefits of cloud computing like – lower cost, pay-as-you-go, flexibility, scalability, upgradability etc etc

Poundbury Systems believes that Dorchester based companies should look at the pros and cons of Cloud Systems solutions in relation to ” on premises ” solutions for their particular situation.

Poundbury has developed and supported Cloud Solutions via their Cloud Computing subsiduary ” FutureLine ”  http://www.futureline.net.uk/

FutureLine initially focussed on Cloud based telephony, supported over networks owned and managed by Poundbury Systems. In recent months the emphasis has been to develop a broader range of cloud  based solutions alongside the Cloud based telephony.

Whether cloud based or on premises the solutions that should be adopted should meet the customers requirements now and in the future.

Factors like performance, security, reliability, fault tolerance, risk and manageability should be discussed and the potential solutions evaluated against these criteria.

Poundbury Systems is known, within Dorchester and beyond for talking to customers in plain English and not in ” jargon “.

See below for contact details:

Contact Us

A new Cisco based Hosted Telephony service is available, via selected Cisco partners, in London City. Cisco Hosted Telephony ( otherwise known as Hosted Voip, Voice or  Hosted Unified Communications is particularly suitable for small and medium sized businesses and those with many small offices ( or small numbers of telephony users in each office ).

A representative from Cisco Systems comments:

“We are seeing an increasing demand for managed and hosted solutions in the voice space and this is especially the case for smaller businesses with less than 20 employees. FutureLine have a refreshingly new approach by addressing the key fundamentals of quality, security and ease of use and deployment. This is all underpinned by partnering with Cisco who fully understand how to manage different media provided by the various consumption models.”

Andy Brocklehurst
RSM Cisco Small Business UK

For more information please contact Clare at Futureline

http://www.futureline.net.uk/contact.html

Cisco phone systems provider Poundbury Systems ( http://www.poundbury.com/ Telephone – 01305 259849  ) is providing futuristic phone and video conferencing systems for Dorset based Small and Medium Businesses under the banner ” Futureline “.

Awareness of the installation of High Speed Fibre Optic networks in Dorset has been raised by eg http://www.dorsetforyou.com/broadband and http://www.teamdorset.org.uk/Business/Broadband-Survey?pgid=153 and Poundbury Systems is building on this awareness by offering local businesses low entry cost phone and video conferencing systems from Cisco Systems
( N.B. BT and Cisco are sponsors of the 2012 Olympics ).

Poundbury Systems are offering a package that will provide Small and Medium Businesses with a phone and web conferencing facility starting at

only £99 per month.

Cisco and Poundbury are thinking ahead to the time when Dorsets roads will be full of people heading to and from Weymouth and Portland and the Sailing Olympics and also thinking back to the recent winter months when snow prevented travel around Dorset.

For many reasons we need to ensure that we can conduct business irrespective of whether we are physically at a place or not. Of course there is always a need to meet people in person but many of the business discussions that we have can be conducted via email, phone, video conferencing and the Internet.

If we prepare for extreme road or weather conditions then this is a basis for a high speed, resilient, reliable communications system.

It is also the basis for a ” Digital Dorset ” which will encourage inward investment and migration.

Poundbury Systems phone and video conferencing systems is flexible and scalable – phones can be added incrementally – one or two at a time and at very low cost.

Call Clare on 01305 259849

to discuss your requirements in more detail.

If you are looking for Asterisk based phone systems in Dorchester Dorset then please give my friends at Poundbury Systems in Dorchester a call.

They  provide computer and Asterisk based telephone 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  use plain English wherever possible rather than technical jargon and  focus on what technology can do for your business rather than bits and bytes.

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

Please contact Clare at Poundbury for clear, simple advice on how to make technology work for you.

http://www.poundbury.com/

The news that 365iT has acquired IT Fully Managed Services company 7 Global this month along with 5i earlier in the year is a Christmas present to all those involved with 365iT, in my opinion!

Since Peter ( Howells ) and I were at Voyager Networks where we had a national IP network to complement our data networking and Internet skills and expertise we have long harboured the desire for 5i to work closely with a forward thinking Managed Services and Hosted Communications provider.

The areas of ICT that 365iT covers include IT operations and management,IT Managed Services, Unified Communications, Business Continuity, Data Backup, IT Security, Virtualisation, Networks, Storage Solutions and Infrastructure Solutions.

These are some of the hottest areas in the ICT world at the moment and for the near future. They encompass other hot sectors like ” Cloud Computing ”  and ” Software as a Service “.

One of the great attractions to 5i of being involved with 365iT and Peter MacLean was his experience of putting together powerful, advanced communications companies. Don’t forget, he is doing this in one of the most difficult economic periods of our lifetime.

Where there’s a will there’s a way and now LMS Capital is also an investor in 365iT.

The story unfolds …….