New HBN CPD program

CONTINUOUS PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT 

Huntingdonshire Business Network (HBN) has just launched its new Autumn Seminar Programme complete with CPD accreditation. The HBN seminars take place on the first Friday of every month at the WI Centre in Huntingdon.  They are open meetings and anybody can attend - with only a small charge for a sandwich lunch.  You can book to attend using the HBN meetup group http://www.meetup.com/Huntingdonshire-Business-Network/  

The first event of the new season was "Marketing Strategy" and this was led by 2 HBN members who are marketing experts  +Simon Atack of Ace Tech Training  and +Tracy Marshall of Approach Direct Marketing.  The event was very popular and a great success and Richard Wishart HBN Chairman (above) received the first CPD Completion Certificate from HBN

All recipients of the new CPD Completion Certificates are encouraged to take "Selfies" and post them on line. 

The Seminars are worth 1 CPD unit and can be used to complement the CPD requirements of any professional body or industry.  Micro-business tend to miss out on the formal professional development training given by larger companies but the new HBN scheme is designed to redress this balance.  

Written by Richard Wishart

HBN Chairman

#hbnseminar

#hbnmember

#cpd

Marketing Strategy Event

Creating a Marketing Strategy for your Business

Marketing is the process of communicating the value of a product or service to customers, for the purpose of selling that product or service.  (Wikipedia)

As we get back into the “Cut and Thrust” of business after recharging ourselves during the summer break -  it is absolutely vital that you have a clearly defined Marketing Strategy for your business. As business owners we need very clear and precise definition of the market we are planning to address and the tools and techniques that we are going to use.

Producing a Marketing Plan that then languishes in your desk drawer is next to useless - It must be a living and dynamic document that drives action and is continually updated by new insights and practical experience.  A well documented and measurable  Marketing Plan is a superb tool for galvanising your Directors, Employees and Specialist Advisors to the same strategic business objectives.

Huntingdonshire Business Network will be holding a Seminar on Friday 5th September 1230-1430.  HBN Marketing Strategy Seminar

The event is part of the HBN Small Business Toolkit Series and after the event attendees should be able to:

1. Create an outline marketing strategy for their business
2. Provide a clear definition of the market to be addressed
3. Create a 10 Point Marketing Action Plan

The Seminar will be led by Simon Atack and Tracy Marshall -  two HBN members with considerable specialist marketing expertise.  Richard Wishart HBN Chairman will chair the event and ask the hard questions.

Simon Atack

Managing Director, Principal Trainer and Consultant at Ace Tech Training and Business Development Ltd

Ace Tech Training and Business Development Ltd are proud to be accredited as an official Registered Training Centre for Levels 1 to 6 of the Institute of Sales and Marketing Management's Ofqual certificated Sales and Marketing courses.

Tracy Marshall

Owner,  Approach Telemarketing. All round marketeer, excels in telemarketing to deliver sales appointments, generate new leads and increase new business

Approach Direct Marketing Ltd is a professional business-to-business (B2B) direct marketing agency. We provide a full range of telemarketing, database building, email marketing services which culminate in managing targeted, effective and productive CRM campaigns.

#hbnmember

#Smallbusinesstoolkit

Written by Richard Wishart

Mentions

G+ "Mentions" within Blogger

I think it is great when you come across a significant feature that you have missed.  Came across this today and I had never seen it before but apparently it has been around for 18 months !! I had always been aware that you could "plus mention" within a G+ post - what I didn't know was that you could also "plus mention" within a Blogger post.

• When you type a "+" within the text and then start typing a name you will get suggestions of your connections for you to select and add.
• When you publish your post the mentioned names get added to the G+ post distribution
• When people are reading the post a "Hover card" appears when you hover the cursor over the mention which if clicked will take you to the persons G+ profile

So here is my first test of the "mention" function within Blogger to three of my very best networking buddies
+Chris Thomas +Mervyn Foster +Ann Hawkins

This is a really simple feature but for me it highlights the "social layer" concept within all Google products and how powerful this can be

What do you think?

Written by Richard Wishart

Parking in Huntingdon

Superb new Multi-Story car park in Huntingdon.  Fantastic design, well built and spotlessly maintained. Only one problem  - no cars !!  It would be really interesting to see the planning figures for "the number of cars" that formed the basis for the original Business Case.  When Sainsbury's moves to the other side of town I suspect there will be even fewer cars.

When I visited at 1600 on Monday the 4th of August there were only 6 cars in the whole new car park which has 300 parking spaces over 4 levels.  I make that a 2% fill rate.  More a statement on the attractiveness of Huntingdon Town Centre rather than the car park - but a very useful barometer of the fortunes of Huntingdon Town Centre

On Monday 20th October at 1300 there were only 30 cars in the car park - only a 10% fill rate.  Slightly better than when the car park opened but there were no cars on the 2nd and 3rd floors and the top floor is still closed.

So maybe this is the start of the Huntingdon "Car Park" index

Don't get me wrong - dramatic redevelopment of Huntingdon Town Centre is long overdue but building an empty car park will not change anything.  I do hope that Huntingdonshire District Council has some form of master plan that will increase retail business in Huntingdon and fill up the car park

My car is getting a bit lonely !!

Written by Richard Wishart

Trade with Poland

THE IMPORTANCE OF POLISH TRADE TO THE UK

The UK is Poland's second most important export market after Germany

#poland #trade #HMA

Technical and Vocational Centre

A New Technical & Vocational Centre at Alconbury Weald

The local economy will be supported by an additional £21.1 million worth of investment next year thanks to the Greater Cambridge Greater Peterborough Enterprise Partnership (LEP). The investment will help to deliver over 3,000 new jobs and unlock land for more than 4,000 new homes to be built. The successful projects span the Greater Cambridge Greater Peterborough area as follows:

Plans include Technical & Vocational Centre at Alconbury Weald Enterprise Campus – developing a new Centre with a focus on the built environment and engineering technical expertise to support the development of the Enterprise Campus and sites across the whole LEP area

Susanne Stent, Principal and CEO of Huntingdonshire Regional College, said:

“We are delighted by this news which will be of huge benefit to our region. We have worked hard with local partners, especially the Local Enterprise Partnership, Urban&Civic and the District Council to create a shared vision which will drive economic prosperity for Huntingdonshire. The Technical and Skills Centre will be a resource providing expertise to increase the number of Apprenticeships and Higher Apprenticeships. We aim to be a recognised market leader in technological skills. The Centre will raise aspirations of young people and create the workforce for tomorrow, providing the technical skills needed for local business development. This will be a centre of expertise for the wider region and will have a profound impact.”

Other parts of the approval 

Cambridge Biomedical Innovation Centre – the creation of a new innovation centre to provide business space for small firms at the growing Cambridge Biomedical Campus next to Addenbrooke’s Hospital

Haverhill Innovation Centres – the development of a new centre at Haverhill Research Park to support business growth in the ICT, Bio-Tech and Agri-Tech sectors

New facilities for The Welding Institute (TWI) at Alconbury Weald Enterprise Campus – expanding TWI’s operation onto the Enterprise Zone to bring more high-skilled jobs, support the growth of businesses in high-tech sectors and act as a catalyst for further growth on the site

Food Manufacturing and Processing Centre of Excellence at Peterborough Regional College – creation of a specialist food manufacturing education resource to train local people who wish to work in the industry

Change of Address

CHANGE OF ADDRESS

The traditional “Delivery Management” process is set for a dramatic and disruptive change as new “Cloud of Things” technologies start to appear. “Proof of Delivery” and “Confirmation of Delivery” business process models will be undergoing a substantive change. The picture above shows the very first ever “Address Beacon” fitted and working on the front door of my house.  

The enabling technology is Bluetooth 4.0 Smart (also known as BLE or Bluetooth low energy) bidirectional radio. BLE beacons operate at 2.5GHz and using a standard coin battery can stay powered up for over a year.  BLE is now standard on all new Android and Apple tablets and smart phones and the Bluetooth Smart interface is being built in to a whole range of wearable tech and personal area networks.  BLE also connects smart watches and Google Glass augmented reality eyewear

.

I am currently using Estimote Beacons for my experimentation.  This beacon incorporates a powerful 32-bit ARM® Cortex M0 CPU with 256kB flash memory, an accelerometer and a 2.4 GHz Bluetooth 4.0 Smart radio. The Beacon transmits regularly and the signal can be picked up by any smartphone or tablet within 70m range - unlike old-style Bluetooth there is no need for any pairing.  A function called Received Signal Strength Indication (RSSI) allows the range from the Beacon to the Tablet to be calculated

So thats the technical part - but what would the Customer / Delivery Driver experience feel like ?   About 70m from the delivery point the Drivers device would register the “Address Beacon” and receive contextual information from the Cloud about how and where to make the delivery.  Google Street View could be used to guide the delivery driver to the exact delivery point required by the customer.  As the distance to the exact delivery point reduces more accurate instructions can be provided.  

At the point of delivery a “Delivery Token” can be passed from the recipient to the carrier to confirm that the delivery has actually taken place + <date and time> and any other contextual information.  The Token that I am currently using for my “Address Beacon” is “139 PE29 !XY” which is the exact delivery postcode of my house but this is completely configurable.

Trying to draw a signature on a “brick” carefully balanced on top of the parcel whilst holding a struggling terrier in your other arm should become a thing of the past. Most so called signatures that are obtained are completely unreadable

We are very familiar with the concept of time triggering events Everybody understands  Alarm Clocks and how they function.  You now have location triggered events which kick-off particular actions when you are at a particular location.  This is built into Google Now and could be activated by beacons as well as GPS. Imagine “When you are at 21 High Street”  > “ring the bell and collect a package” or > “Take a Meter Reading”. Incorporation of “Parcel Delivery” as a subprocess of a Customers Higher Level Business processes is now very much a reality and Beacon and contextual information can now easily be integrated to augment business process management.   I know of Apps with this specific functionality.

I believe that new “Cloud of Things” concepts will not just completely revolutionise postal and express delivery markets but will also be critical to the adoption of Omni-Channel eCommerce.  In fact the first major and visible take up of Beacons will be in High Street retail. Imagine the following scenario.  

You are in town looking to buy a new pair of work shoes.  The BLE on your phone alerts you that there is an appropriate shoe shop 70m down the street.  As you enter the shop the BLE detects a change in RSSI and your phone displays an internal schematic of the store and how to find the “Gentleman’s Business Shoes” section.  As you arrive at the specific display stand - the context works out that you are looking for Black-Brogues, wide fitting, size 9.5 - in fact exactly the same as you bought the last time.   Using the Beacon context the store sends a message to your phone screen.  They have the exact shoes you are looking for on the stand and would like to offer you a 10% loyalty discount plus another 5% discount if you pay for the shoes using Google Wallet on your device.  Press the accept button - job done !

When I receive the first delivery using my “Address Beacon” at No 139 I will write a blog article about the successful carrier.  Who will pick up this challenge ?

Written by Richard Wishart

Business Systems Architecture

Delivery Management Ltd

richard.wishart@del-mgt.com