Even though the meeting didn’t quite have the line up we’d originally set it was really great to see a good turn out this month.

Before all that though a quick congratulations is in order.

Steve Wright of BMS (current UK SBSC PAL) didn’t make this meeting. We’ll forgive him though as he was taking care of the latest addition to the Wright household.

Baby William was born on April 2nd 2010 – congratulations from everyone at AMITPRO!

 

So onto the April meeting,

  Our first speaker was Richard Tubb of James Cash/NetLink IT. Richard has been a regular member of AMITPRO for some years and has taken great strides in growing his business.

Netlink consisted of just one person, Richard until he made the decision to stop “owning a job and running a business”.

To accomplish this Richard began to look at all the things involved in the day-to-day operations and document them. By doing this it meant that job could be delegated to someone else. This could have been anything from performing a monthly bank reconciliation, the VAT return, to installing an SSL Certificate on a server.

Some of the tools he found useful for this included,

SnagIt – Screen capture utility

Results CRM – Client management, Ticketing, etc

KeePass – password management tool

Microsoft Live Mesh – used for synchronising files across PCs

Richard also talked about outsourcing activities out to other companies with two examples being using Zenith InfoTech to help share the workload on server maintenance and Pronto Marketing for keeping the website up-to-date. This meant his time could be spent doing other things to help grow the business,

All of this work culminated in Netlink merging with James Cash.co.uk at the end of 2009,

Richard was good enough to share some examples of the processes he has created. If you leave a comment here he’ll give you access to a shared folder on Live Mesh.

He rounded off the presentation by giving away a couple of the books that had inspired him during the early days of systemising his business.

 

    

(click the images for full details on Amazon)

You can download Richards PowerPoint slides here.

We were really pleased that Richard offered to speak to the group. AMITPRO member generated content is always a great treat and we hope to see more of it in the future!

Richard blogs at www.tubblog.co.uk and you can also follow him on Twitter.

 

Our next speaker was Leigh Odell – Relationship Manager for Accredit UK.

Leigh and Gavin have been attending AMITPRO meetings for the past few months so we were grateful they were able to step in at the last minute.

 

Accredit UK is a government backed and government funded ‘not for profit’ initiative.

Designed for SMEs by SMEs, Accredit UK has been borne out of government research that highlighted a lack of trust between ICT SMEs and ICT Purchasers.

Having Accredit speak directly after Richards presentation worked really well. As part of systemising his business Richard undertook the Accredit standard to ensure he was going in the right direction.

Leigh talked about the how Accredit came about and how they are different to other standards such as ISO.

This standard is aimed specifically at IT companies.

To this effect the program is also segmented so that it’s flexible enough to fit with all the different types of IT companies in the industry.

Currently these are

• ICT Consultancy
• Software Product Design & Development         
• Communications
• Value Added Solutions and Support
• e-Media & e-Commerce
• Hardware Solution Design & Integration

With the following coming soon

• ICT Goods, Manufacturing and Repair
• Information & Broadcast Services
• Wholesale, Trade and Distribution

 

The certification process also looks at the business as whole.

For example, an IT support company wouldn’t just be look at service delivery. Areas such as business generation, customer management and business direction are also placed under the microscope.

Accredit consultants also work closely with a business while it is undergoing the certification process with action plans being formulated before, during and after.

Leigh also shared some details that came out of recent survey carried out by the British Standards Institute (BSI)

“100% of companies were happy to go on record and say that Accredit UK has resulted in Continual Improvement in their business”

“63% of companies reported that Accredit UK helped them to stand out from their competitors”

“96% of companies would recommend ICT Suppliers seek Accredit UK certification ”

Finally Gavin and Leigh gave details about a special offer that has been put together for AMITPRO members to help them save money if they want to undertake the standard.

You can follow Accredit on Twitter and they blog here.

If you’d like any more information about Accredit get in touch with us or you contact Accredit direct via their website.

Leigh’s PowerPoint slides are available here.

Thanks to everyone who came this month. Was really good to see some new faces again and we look forward to seeing you all in May!