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News

Key to moving any business forward is keeping up to date with all the latest developments.  But how can we find the time to read, absorb, analyse & evaluate all of the articles, ideas & news that are available? Therefore we present below news items, articles & reports from the business world that we & our clients, colleagues & associates have recommended.

You can also visit our Today's Top Story to read PPM's latest headlining news story. Alternatively if you want a more "hands-on" experience of our pragmatic hints, tips & tools, our Dates for your Diary page lists upcoming events & activities.

If you have found any items of interest that have helped you in your business and you would like to share, let us know about them on info@pragmaticpm.com and we will add them to this page.

TODAY'S TOP PPM STORY/ARTICLE OF INTEREST:

Marketeer is given new regional role

Plymouth businesswoman Sue Windley has been chosen to represent the Chartered Institute of Marketing's South West board as regional vice-chairman ..... 

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OTHER STORIES & ARTICLES OF INTEREST:

Entrepreneurs Bootcamp™ Latest News & Updates!

Follow the latest news and updates on the eleven participants going through the first ever Entrepreneurs Bootcamp™ in the UK.....

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Sue gets zoological!

PPM's Marketing Director, Sue Windley presented to the BIAZA Conference in November 2007 at Marwell Zoo.  BIAZA (British & Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums) are the professional body representing the best zoos and aquariums in Britain and Ireland. Their Member Collections pride themselves on their excellent animal welfare, education and conservation work. BIAZA supports them in their work and helps promote the work of good zoos and aquariums. This conference is made up of delegates who are the marketing and education personnel from zoos and aquaria all over Britain and Ireland.

Sue kicked off the final day of the conference by presenting on the Psychology of Communications (how to get into the mind of a target audience).  Sue commented before her presentation "It is a fantastic opportunity for me to present to the marketing professionals of the zoological world and share ideas of how we can continue to attract people to get more involved with the zoos.  They have a great line up of speakers including Charles Mills of TwoFour Communications and David Thorp, of the Charted Institute of Marketing, so I will definitely be presenting at the top of my game!"

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PPM Director short listed as "Mentor of the Year"

Sue Windley, co-director of business acceleration consultants PPM has been short listed for the Herald's Business Awards 2007 in the "Mentor of the Year" category. 

Judges met on October 10 to decide the short list and winners of the seven awards, which attracted a total of 85 nominations.  The winners will be announced at the Herald's AWard Dinner on November 15 as the climax of Plymouth's activities in National Enterprise Week 2007.

It seems deciding the shortlist in the categories generated plenty of debate among judges Nigel Halford, chief executive of the Tamar Science Park, Tracy Wilson, head of commercial marketing at the University of Plymouth, David Parlby, chief executive of Plymouth Chamber of Commerce and Liz Parks, The Herald's business reporter.  David Parlby, who chaired the judges meeting, said: "There was a very high standard of entries and some of the categories were exceptionally difficult to judge for both a shortlist and eventual winner."  Tracy Wilson added: "I found being involved a real honour and to see individuals and organisations coming through just goes to show how much talent we have got in this city. Some of them really do have that tingle factor that makes them special and stand out."

Sue commented on her nomination: "It was a total surprise to me to find out that I had been nominated and then short-listed.  It is an honour to think that I have had such an impact on the people that I work with that they would take part of their valuable time to make the nominations."

PPM are also delighted to see that one of the Bootcampers, Nick Palfrey, is in the final running for the "Young Business Person of the Year" Award.  In addition several of the sponsors and supporters of the 2007 Entrepreneurs Bootcamp were also short listed in the various categories:

• Bootcamp presenter Andrew Ashley (EPL) who supported the Bootcampers during their 5 day "ordeal" is up for Business Leader of the Year;
• Bootcamp sponsor Goss Interactive for Business of the Year;
• Bootcamp sponsor the Wolseley Trust for Social Enterprise of the Year;
• Bootcamp sponsor Tamar Science Park's Nina Sarlaka shares the shortlist with Sue for the Mentor of the Year award and
• Bootcamp sponsor Plymouth Business Growth's representative Dave Young (Airport Business Centre) is short listed for Entrepreneur of the Year. 

Sue Windley added "What a wonderful way to demonstrate the talent that supported and participated in the Entrepreneurs Bootcamp™.  We have a Bootcamp representative in six out of the total of seven categories - no wonder all the Bootcampers are going from strength to strength."

We wish good luck to all for November 15th!

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Upstarts join the Last Friday Club

The Plymouth-based entrepreneurs network are linking with the Last Friday Club to provide a regular meeting place for Upstarts and other local entrepreneurs. Their first event was joining members of the Last Friday Club at lunchtime (12 - 2pm) on Friday 28th September at Plymouth Gin Distillery.  Sue Windley, the new host of the combined networks, commented "The aim of combining the Last Friday Club with the Upstarts Club is to provide a place for entrepreneurs to meet up in an informal environment (work hard and play hard!).  We will also be inviting all of this year's Entrepreneurs Bootcamp participants and supporters, along with other entrepreneurs (well established and just starting up).  We want to make it THE entrepreneurs network where people can do business in an informal atmosphere."

You can read about the background to the Upstarts Club in the October issue of Chamberlink Magazine here.

If you feel your business would benefit from attending and increasing your network of contacts, please contact Cultivate Marketing (e-mail Sandra Ralphson sandra@cultivatemarketing.co.uk or phone her on 01872 260444 to book).

Sue has double presentation at B2B Exhibition

Sue provided a presentation & seminar at the Business Needs & Support Exhibition on Wednesday 25th July at St Mellion Hotel Golf & Country Club (9.30am to 7.30pm).  She delivered the popular presentation "How new businesses can increase their Contact to Contract Ratio" where she shared the secrets of how to increase the number of times you can close a sale quickly from initial contact with a prospective customer.  In the afternoon she then held a seminar on "Top 10 Tips to Accelerate your Sales". This seminar provided the key essentials to increasing your sales opportunities: not only how to find more prospective customers but also how to ensure you turn prospects into profitable customers.

The Business Needs & Support Exhibition is designed to offer businesses and organisations throughout the South West the perfect opportunity to promote their products and services to a wide range of customers from across the whole region! The show will not only provide you with the perfect marketing tool to sell your business but we'll also provide the perfect platform for a mega networking event!

With over 75 exhibition stands, an expected footfall of over 1000 visitors, a comprehensive list of Professional Guest Speakers and more, the show will prove to be an event not to be missed by anyone involved in Business Needs & Support!

The Show is FREE to all visitors enabling both exhibitors and visitors to have the prime opportunity to communicate with a very diverse potential customer base.

Details for the 2008 exhibition will be available on the Business Needs & Support Exhibition website

 

Joint Venture to provide "Business Acceleration with Resilience"

Exciting joint venture announced to offer unique approach to accelerating business growth whilst minimising risk to the organisation.  Pragmatic Performance Management Ltd, the south west's leading business acceleration specialists, have joined with business continuity experts MSD International Ltd to provide an innovative and unique programme of training and consultancy: Business Acceleration with Resilience.

This joint venture brings together the innovative approaches of two consultancies who are both leaders in their respective fields to show businesses that "you CAN have your cake and eat it too!".  Combining business acceleration with business continuity processes will enable organisations to grow and develop at an accelerated rate whilst minimising the risk of being prone to or being affected by disasters.

Sue Windley, co-director of PPM Ltd commented: "We are delighted to be working with MSD International as we have seen how their approaches fit very neatly with what we do, both in their working ethos and high level of successful outcomes.  This is truly a unique approach which guarantees success: our client companies have the tools to develop their businesses quickly, sustainably and profitably, using existing resources AND build in the processes that prevent failure and minimise risk.  Plus they have the added benefit of reducing their insurance premiums and resourcing costs."

Sue continues: "SMEs are just as prone to disasters as large corporates but with the heavy workload of owner/managers, business continuity planning is often relegated to the "when I get round to it" pile of priorities.  Our joint offering, which is essentially about minimising costs whilst maximising profit to guarantee success, helps to push business continuity planning up the agenda."

PPM and MSD's joint working means that clients have choices as to which approach they can take to protect and build resilience into all aspects of their business.  In April and October 2007, the Business Acceleration with Resilience Masterclass is available when participants will learn in four workshops (which are combined with one-to-one consultancy sessions) all the tools they need to accelerate and protect their business growth.  There is also the opportunity to "Try before you Buy" with a 2-hour taster workshop on 1 March 2007 in Plymouth.  Further details available to download here.

Alternatively the Business Acceleration with Resilience approach is available as bespoke consultancy, working with and within the organisation to accelerate its business growth with its existing resources whilst protecting the business – success guaranteed! Contact PPM Ltd or MSD International Ltd for a free initial consultation.

Making Charities Work Better

Charities Management Magazine January 2007:  Carolyn Story, a director of Pragmatic Performance Management suggests that the management of charities should focus on certain aspects in order to improve the way their charities work.

Sustaining success is the name of the game when it comes to managing a charity.  To achieve this goal effectively, it is important to keep processes and systems to a minimum and maintain focus on delivering the best results for your clients.  Of course this sounds good in theory but how is this managed and what constraints face charities that prevent this from happening?  The most likely barriers are:

• Limited finances, leading to difficulties in retaining talented staff.

• High reliance on volunteers who can be hard to find.

• Staff and volunteers focusing all their efforts on helping clients and not paying attention to the actual cost of delivery.

Some estimates indicate that as much as 30% of organisational resources are wasted due to processes not suited to the needs of the organisation; for example, inappropriate IT packages may account for half of staff time being wasted ........

For the full article, download Charities Management Magazine January 2007 Article

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Addressing Top Management Transition

General Insurance Magazine January 2007:  Carolyn Story of Pragmatic Performance Management urges broker principals to think about how best to introduce top management succession.

There are many pressures on principals/owners or joint principals/owners of insurance brokerages in relation to their personal future and the management succession of their businesses.  This article is aimed at those who are determined to resist going into networks but are contemplating some sort of new top management, either now or in the future.

For the full article, download General Insurance Magazine January 2007 Article

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PPM's Marketing Director appointed to Chartered Institute of Marketing's South West Regional Board

One of Devon’s leading sales and marketing specialists Sue Windley has been appointed as Vice-Chair of the south west regional board of the Chartered Institute of Marketing.

Chartered Marketer Sue is the Marketing Director of Plymouth-based Pragmatic Performance Management Ltd, a business acceleration consultancy that works with south-west businesses to increase capacity using existing resources (enabling the business to achieve more with less effort).  

Sue said: “I have been actively involved in the Chartered Institute of Marketing in the South West for some time and feel privileged to be appointed to the regional board of an organisation which is the global champion for best practice in the marketing profession.”

She has worked with a variety of organisations, from SME’s to multi-nationals operating in the global economy both in the private & public sectors.  Her key skills focus on gaining competitive advantage through adopting profitable sales & marketing approaches. 

Sue is now putting these skills to their ultimate test by designing and delivering the “Entrepreneurs Bootcamp™” which will be piloted in Plymouth in March this year.

She has enlisted successful entrepreneurs, business psychologists and the Royal Marines to teach budding entrepreneurs the “tricks of the trade” in 5 days whilst also giving them 12-months’ of commercial support to guarantee  turning their dream into reality, resulting in high-growth businesses being set up in the city.

Click on the magazine names to see news of Sue's promotion to the Regional Board of the CIM reported in the March issues of Chamber Link Magazine and B2B Magazine. 

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Which sort of Manager do you recognise?

West Britain Working Cornwall Section 9 November 2006:  The second in a series of columns by Carolyn Story of Pragmatic Performance Management Ltd, who specialise in accelerating business growth.  She has board level experience within companies at a range of levels and specialises in discovering the hidden opportunities to achieve more from individuals, teams and organisations.

As a managing director, your personality shapes the way the organisation performs and functions, which means everyone from the boardroom down is directly affected by your energy, drive goals and desires.  Like companies, personalities are complex and most MD's fall into one of a small number of categories whose traits, good or bad, enable or limit business success......

For the full article, download West Briton Article

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Challenging Leadership Habits

Association of Project Management Yearbook 2006/07: 

Carolyn Story and Sue Windley of PPM Ltd have written an article designed to get you thinking - about yourself!  And to offer clues and ideas for making the necessary changes to ensure personal and project success.

The skills yesterday’s successful leader possessed are no longer the guarantee for success they used to be in today’s world where expectations run high and the increasing rates of change continually change the goalposts.  Therefore today’s leaders must look for new ways to communicate, motivate and achieve. 

 The APM Body of Knowledge 5th Edition draws attention to how fundamental effective communication is to successful project management, highlighting how “Careful thought must be given to the choice of medium and its likely impact.”

There is a massive body of work on all aspects of personality, behaviour, interaction and responses, but only now is there starting to be wider recognition in the business community for just how unconscious communication affects the content and delivery of messages.  What we transmit unconsciously can have a devastating effect, or help to create a genuine leader.  Therefore to ensure we continue to strive for improvement, we need to challenge leadership habits continuously – in ourselves and others......

For the full article, download APM Yearbook or PPM Draft

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IoD Welcomes Further Education & Training Bill

22 November 2006: Commenting on today's Further Education and Training Bill, Sue Windley, Institute of Directors (IoD) Devon and Cornwall Training and Education Officer, said: "If the Bill genuinely delivers - as the Government seems to anticipate - greater flexibility and less bureaucracy in the further education sector, then that is to be welcomed. Further education colleges need greater freedom to respond to local learning needs and the training requirements of employers. It should be noted, though, that many colleges are already working hard to respond to employers' needs and don't often get the recognition they deserve. 46% of IoD members surveyed earlier this year used colleges to train some of their employees, and the majority considered the quality of training provided to be good or better. 15% of IoD members are also involved in developing courses or qualifications with FE colleges."

Sue Windley added: "The Bill brings forward some useful initiatives outlined in March's White Paper. For example, the free tuition for those under 25 to a first Level 3 qualification is well-intentioned and targets an area of weakness in our current system. The Government's emphasis on tackling coasting or failing providers is also right, and echoes the approach taken towards schools. However, the value of other aspects of the Bill is less obvious. Whether the restructuring of the Learning and Skills Council will amount to more than administrative tinkering seems a moot point - the LSC still has some distance to travel to convince employers of its usefulness to their businesses. And the plans for new skills boards will sound alarm bells for those concerned about the sheer complexity of the skills infrastructure we have already."

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Businesswomen urged to have 'Can Do' Approach

Western Morning News Business & Jobs Section 26 October 2006: West country women are preparing to be inspired at a conference organised just for them, which takes place in Exeter next week.  Emma Corlett reports.

One of the South West's most inspirational women will be encouraging a positive attitude towards achievement in the workplace at a major conference being supported by the Western Morning News.

As around 200 women prepare to gather at Exeter's Sandy Park for the Women in Business "Together the Future is Ours" conference, Sue Windley, co-director of Pragmatic Performance Management and Vice-chairman of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, Devon and Cornwall, is preparing to prove her case that: 'If you believe you can, you can."

Speaking ahead of Tuesday's event, she said success at work was about defying a negative society and taking a positive approach.

For the full article, go to Western Morning News or download Article

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Businesses can learn to step beyond 'Cornishness'

12 October 2006 West Briton newspaper: Carolyn Story is a founding director of south west Pragmatic Performance Management Ltd, who specialise in accelerating business growth.  She has board level experience within companies at a range of levels, from multi-nationals to SMEs, which has honed her strategic business skills.  Carolyn specialisies in discovering hidden opportunities to achieve more from individuals, teams and organisations.  In a series of columns in the West Briton's Working Cornwall, Carolyn will share some of her knowledge and expertise.  This week she explains on how relying on the Cornish aspect of your brand may not be enough to stay ahead of the game.

Being a Cornish company can be a great thing, offering a sense of place, identity, even culture, perhaps a perception of quality.  The food and drink industry is a prime example of that much-talked about work / life balance or the willingness of Cornish businesses to support each other.  Good qualities indeed, yet why are so many of the county's companies struggling to compete not only in Cornwall but also up-country?

Of course there isn't a simple answer but those who rely on being Cornish as their single and greatest selling point may be left floundering in a crowded marketplace that accepts new waves of entrepreneurs and relocating companies every year.  'Being local' is a brand value but on its own it amy become self-limiting and insubstantial as a 'corporate message'.  A type, style, technique or flavour can be 'Cornish' but that doesn't necessarily say quality, customer service, reliability, solvency, value and a host of other characteristics which customers expect whether in Cornwall or Carlisle. 

Cornwall's 'cool' image may be positive but competition from other cool places mean we've got our work cut out to stay ahead...................

Download full article.

 

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