Former CIO blames Amtrak’s demise on poor technology

Amidst news that Amtrak Express Parcels (Netfold) has entered receivership, its former CIO Phil Young has revealed that UK Brand could have survived the credit crunch had they been willing to let technology take more of a centre stage to seal the company’s future as a leading UK home delivery provider. In a candid interview with the award-winning entrepreneur, Young claims that the company ‘did not fail due to bad management or poor ownership, but failed due to the laws of business economics’.

Amtrak, a well-known brand in the UK Domestic parcel delivery sector, hit turbulent times after its sale three years ago by 3i, the venture capital giant. Over the past years it saw ownership change three times between various Private Equity companies and Young believes that this obviously did have some negative impact on the operation, but that it was very likely to be insurmountable cash hardship as banks tightened their lending that has forced their hand, leaving over 1,000 loyal workers unemployed.

Young, who was awarded CIO Innovator of the Year whilst at Amtrak, believes that had the company invested in technology earlier to help reduce the overheads of ‘credit control’ and implemented a true e-commerce & CRM solution earlier, they may well have been able to ride the economic downturn without the need to rely on the bank extending their credit facilities

Young, who left Amtrak in March 2007, suggests that they should have moved to a model based around the growth market in home internet shopping rather than account based trading and that “by further building low cost online services that enticed shippers with its ease of use and reporting; Amtrak had the potential to secure their position as a real player in this space”.

“I left because sadly, technology was not seen as a key investment at the time, an investment for the future of the company and a revenue earner, but instead it was seen as a cost. Whilst it is a sad day and a lesson learnt too late for Amtrak, it sends a warning out to others than they must embrace the changing nature of the marketplace if they are to survive”, adds Young, whose autobiography 2 Much 2 Young was released last week.

For more information on Phil Young and his autobiography ‘2 Much 2 Young’ visit www.j-ya.com

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Traditional incentives fail to impress Generation Y Mavericks

Businesses are heading towards a shortage of talented successors as current managers resist the emerging new work culture of Generation Y, according to a newly released whitepaper from leadership development consultancy Dynamic Transitions. “Generation Y expect more from a company than just a salary and are looking for community and a company that shares their principles and respects their individuality. As a result, traditional incentives are holding little interest for them”, says Dynamic Transitions MD Judith Germain.

The whitepaper entitled ‘The Generation Game: How to manage a new generation of Mavericks’ argues that managers should be encouraging more extroverts and those with maverick tendencies into the workforce, something which is counter intuitive to most managers and suggests that it this reluctance that is causing companies to struggle to recruit and retain talented Generation Y Mavericks.

It also indentifies that Generation X individuals are much more willing and find it acceptable to work longer hours to get ahead in the company, whereas the new Generation Y employees do not accept that they need to be at work for 14 hours to succeed or be promoted.

“There is a distinct clash of culture between the X & Y generations. At the moment ‘Y’ are generally ‘the workforce’, with ‘X’ being ‘the managers’. Managers, especially ‘Baby Boomers’, think employees should do long hours at work and put the needs of the business above all else. Generation Y employees believe that their work can be done without spending hours at work and at a time that is convenient to them”, explains Germain.

“Generation Y are used to digital technology like Playstations, IPods etc that allows them to multi task. This leads them to believe that it’s essential to do many things at once to complete tasks. For example Generation Y employees cannot understand why they can’t sit at their desk listening to their IPod whilst they work. To attempt to do this will lead to disciplinary action by the typical Baby Boomer or Generation X manager” adds Germain.

“Mavericks are something to be encouraged not something to be stopped in terms of the work they are doing. The way you work with mavericks has to be challenging and give them the freedom they need to carry out their role effectively. Whilst the new generation of Maverick has slightly different expectations and skills, they still need to be managed carefully to ensure their energies are channelled to make a positive contribution to the organisation”, adds Germain.

Dynamic Transitions is a leadership company specialising in working with Troublesome Talent ® and improving leadership performance within organisations. The full version of the whitepaper can be downloaded from http://www.developing-leadership.com/generationy.html

Success in the face of adversity: The rags to riches journey of an award-winning CIO

After three years in the making, the much awaiting biography ‘2 Much 2 Young’ by Phil Young, the award wining former CIO of Amtrak has been released today. Providing a fascinating insight into the ups and downs of a successful entrepreneur, business angel and family man, the autobiographical account shows how one man has succeeded in the face of adversity, from his birth in the front room of council house in a poor suburb of Birmingham in 1965, to battling parental divorce, kidnap and poor academic qualifications to being awarded the CIO Innovator of the Year for the UK.

Whilst Young never intended the book to be a ‘how to’ guide, it does illustrate how courage, perseverance and a desire to succeed can carry people through the darkest of times, both in personal and professional life.

After his parents split when he was just five years old, he experienced the pain of separation from his siblings as his mother took him and his sister to Kidderminster to live with her new partner, leaving three others with his father.

Being academically poor, Young has had to work hard and has been self taught in everything he has done and achieved in life. Having also battled through adversities such as; being kidnapped as a teenager, depression and his own divorce, Young is a true testament to a man who has refused to let life’s challenges get him down and provides hope to those whose next break could be just around the corner.

The book also provides a valuable insight into Phil’s professional expertise in a number of areas including innovation, change management, business troubleshooting, interim management and other areas which Phil has excelled in despite the challenges he has faced.

“The book is essentially a self-taught lesson on how far I’ve come and what I have learnt along the way. It has been very therapeutic for me in terms of helping me to see how I have become the person I am today and I hope that it will help others to see that the only barriers to happiness and success are within themselves and how they can overcome any obstacles to take charge of their own destiny’ says Young.

Young is now happily remarried to his childhood sweetheart whom he met up with via Friends Reunited and lives with his two step children. And last year, he reached the pinnacle of his career after setting up his own consultancy Johnson-Young Associates Ltd and being awarded the CIO Innovator of the Year award for the UK.

“When you know what it is like to have nothing, you are not scared of taking risks that might leave you with nothing”, adds Young.

‘2 Much 2 Young’ is available from global publishing house Trafford. To find out more visit Trafford at http://www.trafford.com/08-0184 and all good leading book stores in 8-10 weeks.

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Award-winning speaker shows dentists how to sell

Highly acclaimed international speaker and co-founder of the Professional Speakers Association (PSA), Phillip Khan-Panni, will be showing dentists across the country how to market their skills better and differentiate themselves from their competition at the Faculty of General Dental Practice (UK)’s annual study day in London next month.

Sponsored by Denplan, the event will be held at The Royal College of Surgeons of England on the 12^th

Phillip Khan-Panni

September and Khan-Panni will present new thinking on ways to connect with patients, suppliers and staff, focusing on establishing rapport in those vital first few seconds when decisions of trust are made. He will also explain how to identify and project the compelling differences that distinguish one dentist from another, and how communication style can build and enhance relationships.

Khan-Panni, the UK’s first and only world silver medallist in public speaking, believes that the need for dentists to market themselves better is similar to the plight of most small businesses across the country, and that too they can benefit from similar techniques adopted by other industries which rely heavily on person to person interaction.  “Patients, like customers, have a choice,” he says, “and they will choose the dentist who makes them feel most comfortable.”

He adds: “Like many service organisations, their success lies in their ability to deliver outstanding customer service and establish a relationship, which ensures that the customer will not only keep coming back but tell their peers about them too.”  Khan-Panni’s highly acclaimed book ‘Getting Your Point Across” was recently republished by HowToBooks due to popular demand.

Richard Hayward, FGDP(UK) dean, says, “We feel very privileged and excited to have Phillip join us in what is certain to be an exceptional day. I have no doubt that delegates will come away from the event enthused with ideas and techniques to help them see tangible improvements in their interaction with both patients and colleagues.”

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Notes to Editors

1. Phillip Khan-Panni is a wordsmith, who helps people do better with verbal communication – to speak in public without fear and in a way that makes others want to listen, and to write better speeches, presentations, promotional material and sales letters.  Born in Hong Kong and raised in India, Phillip has worked in some 16 countries. With experience in speciality selling, advertising and direct marketing, his previous roles include Advertisement Manager and subsequently Managing Director of a magazine publisher and Senior Copywriter at Reader’s Digest.  On a national newspaper, he tripled classified advertising revenue in a single year.

He is also the author of seven books on communication skills including the recently republished “Getting Your Point Across”. Phillip is past branch Chair of the Chartered Institute of Marketing and a Founder of the Professional Speakers Association. He has won more speech contests than anyone in Europe, including UK Champion seven times and is the UK’s first and only World Silver Medallist in Public Speaking.

For more information visit www.pkpcommunicators.com

2. The Faculty of General Dental Practice (UK) is the academic home for general dental practitioners (GDPs) and dental care professionals (DCPs) in the UK. Based at The Royal College of Surgeons of England, it aims to promote excellence in the standards of patient care in general dental practice by encouraging involvement in postgraduate training and assessment, education and research. The FGDP(UK) supports the career development of both GDPs and DCPs and recognises the value of an integrated dental team in modern dentistry.

3. The event is valid for 5 hours of CPD and costs £50, £100 or £150 for vocational dental practitioners, FGDP(UK)/Denplan members and non-members respectively, with discounted rates for dental care professionals and vocational trainee advisers. Contact the FGDP(UK) on 020 7869 6760 or fgdp@rcseng.ac.uk to reserve one of the few places that remain.

For more information, please contact Jenna Gould or Rebecca King on 01603 283 503 or email info@mediajems.co.uk

wMobile 1.8 brings new calender functionality to the forefront

W-Systems Corp has announced the release of version 1.8 of their highly acclaimed wMobile Mobile CRM product. The new version welcomes the addition of revolutionary team based graphical monthly, weekly and daily calendars to the application, displays equally well on any phone from BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, iPhone to Palm and has “pushed the envelope of what is possible in mobile application”, according to W-Systems President Christian Wettre.

Weekly View

With the latest graphical team calendars, wMobile users can now interactively access any team members calendar via their mobile phone and with new dynamic time zone support, any user can specify the time zone they are operating in and have schedule activities translated on the fly to display in the context of their current location. A short demonstration of wMobile’s group calendar functionality can be accessed from www.youtube.com/wmobilecrm.

“wMobile 1.8 illustrates a leap forward in the usability of mobile web applications.  By offering a parity in user experience across all major phone operating systems we are enabling our customers to freely choose the mobile phone device most suitable for their users without concern of model and operating system obsolescence ” states Wettre.

Monthly view

 

wMobile, the highly acclaimed mobile telephone client for the popular GoldMine CRM system, continues to be at the forefront of truly accessible mobile CRM, proving that it is not only feasible for large organizations with large budgets, but is equally accessible for small organizations with just a few users. It is sold through a rapidly expanding international partner network that can provide local training and customization support, making it a one of the most adaptable and flexible global solutions in mobile CRM.

“With wMobile we have been able to fulfill a need for our small to mid-size customers to mobilize their CRM processes.  The product sales cycle is very short because wMobile is inexpensive and provides great value, and implementation is quick and easy.  I use wMobile to access my GoldMine daily, so it’s a pleasure to endorse and sell a product that I really believe in”, adds Kevin Reichley, Vice President of sales for Ticomix Inc (www.ticomix.com)

 “Our simple installation procedures and a low $295 per user license cost means that wMobile is one of very few mobile CRM products on the market that supports as little as two users and has been proven to scale up for larger organizations with hundreds of users. wMobile 1.8 demonstrates our continued commitment to making mobile CRM even more integrated into the day to day business processes”, explains Wettre, who announced the completion of wMobile’s 200^th customer installation last month.

For more details visit www.w-systems.com

Editor’s Notes

About W-Systems Corp.

W-Systems offers a number of award winning customer relationship management software applications and have provided cost effective and innovative solutions to over 600 customer organizations across a variety of industries and vertical markets.  For more information visit www.w-systems.com.

wMobile is a registered trademark of W-Systems Corp.  Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

wMobile is an application that delivers corporate CRM systems in real time to remote devices such as a mobile phone. The application is designed to provide valuable, intuitive and time-saving functionally for sales personnel via their mobile telephone device.

wMobile provides wireless mobile access to the popular GoldMine Corporation Edition and Premium Edition ® and is compatible with Microsoft IIS Server 5.0 or higher, Microsoft .NET Framework and most mobile devices including BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Palm Treo, iPhone and Symbian based phones. wMobile starts at $295 per named user license with volume license pricing based on quantity.

The primary strength of wMobile is its ability to improve the efficiency and productivity of sales personnel in the field, providing wireless interaction without synchronization, meaning that absolutely no data resides on the phone should it be lost or stolen.  wMobile proves a number of innovative features such Proximity Contacts – the ability to quickly identify all nearby contacts such as customers and prospects. wMobile reduces the burden on organization IT resources by deploying mobile CRM as a server based web application with no application or data synchronization between server and mobile client.

W-Systems is at the forefront of delivering CRM technology, having delivered innovative customer management solutions to over 600 client organizations since 1996.

For more information visit www.w-systems.com

Press Enquiries

For further details, screen shots or to arrange interviews please contact;

Jenna Gould

Phone: +44 (0) 1603 283 503 / +44 (0) 7958 263 708

Email: jenna@mediajems.co.uk

 

Businesses urged to focus on short term returns to close the deal

Busineses need to re-evaluate their proposition and stop selling on benefits if they are to survive the credit crunch, according to business development specialists Pro-Excellence. Instead, they should be focusing on short term return on investment as ‘nice to have’s in this climate will simply get stalled by the finance director who need to be convinced that the expenditure makes sense’ says Pro-Excellence MD Richard White.

White also warns businesses, and particularly SME’s and mirco-businesses, not to assume that price cutting is this answer, suggesting that this is expecially true when selling services, as lower rates typically represent a higher risk.

“Finance directors are not as short sighted as some people may think so the answer is to take more time finding out the real problems the customer is facing right now and providing a solution which will solve these specific problems. Dont just think you can offer the same old thing that might have been appropriate in a period of growth and when cash was not such an issue”, explains White, who will be delivering his highly acclaimed workshop ‘Developing your Own Lead Generation Strategy’ at the forthcoming Growing Your Own Business Exhibition at the NEC in October.

White, who has an MBA from the Cranfield School of Management believes that businesses need to focus on activity and management as when there is a slow down, there tends to be less prospecting activity when infact the reverse should be true.

“Prospecting activity during a downturn in the economy should actually increase, partly because there are less opportunities around and partly because they will benefit from the lower activity of their competitors”, says White.

 “I always advise businesses to ask themselves one simple question, if you were in your prospect’s shoes, would you go for it? If the answer is no, then you need find a proposition where the answer would be yes”, adds White.

Pro Excellence provides inspirational business development services for business owners, reluctant sales people, and non-sales staff. Richard White is an NLP Master Practitioner and Certified NLP Coach. For more information visit: www.pro-excellence.com

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