Adodo Consultancy Services Limited Nottingham Superb Five Star Review by Marie R.

http://adodo.co.uk 441159701471 Adodo Consultancy Services Limited Nottingham reviews 5 Star Rating Adodo were introduced to us through Nottingham City Council as a 'pilot' scheme. We didn't know what to expect but we have been delighted with their contribution to our organisation. Adodo Consultancy Services Limited 26 Cropwell Road, Radcliffe-on-Trent Nottingham Nottinghamshire NG12 2FS

More Reviews = More Money

According to Harvard study a 1% increase in Yelp  ratings leads to a 5% to 9% increase in revenues.

Why would this be, well look at the facts;
               62% of people read online reviews
               70% of customers trust a business with a minimum of 6-10 5star reviews
               (In fact the above figure is almost as high as personal recommendations.)
In short, you must stay on top of all your reviews.

Reputation: More than Just Consumer Reviews  
Consumer reviews have been proven powerful in shaping how buyers decide on which product or service to purchase. And with 97% of all consumers searching for local businesses online (BIA/Kelsey and ConStat), it’s only a matter of time before they find what they are looking for on Google. And chances are, if you appear in the search results, they’re going to see reviews about you too. That’s why it’s crucial that you have positive reviews outranking and “pushing down” negative ones.  If you have no online reviews you are probably damaging your online reputation.
And it's no longer good enough just to simply have testimonials somewhere on your website. Customers are on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social networks seeing your competition and looking for 'social proof'.

To sum it all up you need to MONITOR - MANAGE - MARKET until you get that online 5 star Reputation.

Remember your Search reviews are Your Revenue!

 

Catena Network Nottingham Exceptional 5 Star Review by Jackie C.

07595 281315 Catena Network Nottingham reviews New Rating We've been in business a long time and yet I was never tempted to join a networking organisation, until I met Claire earlier this year and attended a Catena event. Catena events are never run of the mill. They always have a certain style and are both enjoyable and beneficial. The most recent event, afternoon tea at Perkins, was a lovely way of getting to know the person behind the business card and, like all Catena events, something a little different. Catena's USP is Claire - she is engaging, professional and with a background in Professional Services Marketing, she certainly knows her stuff! Already looking forward to the next event. Catena Network Arnold Nottingham Nottinghamshire NG5 6SY

Royal Navy Select SpliceCom

More evidence as to the reasons why Adodo are proud to be a SpliceCom Community member.

The Royal Navy has started the rollout of next generation command & control systems, based on SpliceCom’s Maximiser OS based IP PBX, to train its submariners. Working closely with SpliceCom Community Partner iCS Communications and prime contractor British Aerospace Systems (BAe), Britain’s leading developer of telephone systems has delivered specially modified versions of its S8000 Soft PBX and PCS 582G touch screen IP Phones to meet the Royal Navy’s exacting requirements.

The process started when the Ministry of Defence (MoD) issued a tender for equipment to replace the Royal Navy’s existing Sub-Surface Training System (Trainers), which was viewed as obsolete. In particular, on-going maintenance of the purpose built PC based VoIP solution utilising touchscreens was becoming an ever-increasing issue that was having a significant impact on training for submariners.

Although an existing Command & Control system from Speakerbus was under consideration, discussions between BAe and iCS identified SpliceCom’s Maximiser OS based Soft PBX with PCS 582G touch screen IP phones as the basis of a far more flexible solution. “The feature-rich SpliceCom feature set allowed the basic concept of the proposed new training system to be tested using standard “off-the-shelf” products,” explained iCS Communications’ founder and MD, John Gillborn. “iCS then acted as the intermediary between BAe and SpliceCom to agree, define and timeline the developments required to enhance the IP PBX and IP phones to meet the MoD requirements. SpliceCom’s flexibility as a company and our close relationship with them as a business partner, were key to making this happen,” continued Gillborn.

Developments centred around the adaptation of the PCS 582G IP Phones to work as “headless” comms clients with specific specialist headsets, the addition of Push-To-Talk (PTT) functionality and interconnects for multiple (Binaural) audio inputs to be used simultaneously.

The initial rollout was for three training sites, each one consisting of SpliceCom’s Soft PBX with 30 modified PCS 582G touchscreen extensions, plus spares. Each site was allocated 3 weeks to strip out the old system, install the new and successfully complete Site Acceptance Training (SAT). Following the successful completion of these tasks, within the allocated time, the systems were handed over to the MoD to commence training.

“The Royal Navy’s training suites are used for “real world” simulation,” said Gillborn. “The communication system is a fundamental part of this, providing the senior ranks with an open channel that the whole bridge listens to. This bespoke multi-party command & control system fuses off-the-shelf British technology with SpliceCom’s in-house development skills to deliver a solution that is simply not available at this level of functionally or price.”

“By using the SpliceCom system to fulfil this role, we have achieved this in a way that is easy to deploy, simple to use, quick to diagnose and maintain, without the need to completely close the Trainers as was the case with the older systems. Fast start times and easy “on the fly” configuration makes this system a pleasure to work with,” said Steve Johns, Area Support Manager for British Aerospace Systems.

“There are already plans for the deployment of a 4th site, but now the initial systems are in place and being used by the Royal Navy there is a lot of interest from other training facilities and maintenance teams within BAe and the MoD.  We recognise that this will be a slow process, but there is a lot of promise for this product over the next 2 to 3 years. The bottom line here is, if there’s a system requirement that’s a little out of the ordinary, and there’s a real business need with a realistic budget in place, you’re far more likely to achieve it with a SpliceCom system,” concludes Gillborn.

10 Critical Errors to Avoid with Your Strategic Plan.

The beginning of the year is a great time for re-thinking your organisation's strategy. Come February most plans have already failed.

Successful strategic planning requires the avoidance of critical common mistakes that we all make over and over again.

Here are 10 pitfalls you must avoid in order to successfully execute your strategic plan.

1. Commitment from Everyone

It’s in everyone’s best interest to have a strategy but it is crucial to get buy-in from right through the organisation. Without a shared vision and commitment, even the best strategy is unlikely to succeed.

2. Not Getting the Right People Involved

Anyone who is crucial to setting forth the company's vision as well as those responsible for carrying it out should be involved. This ensures team commitment and helps resolve stumbling blocks early.

3. Failing to Focus on the Big Picture

What is your vision? Strategic planning is intended to focus on high-level thinking. Is the vision clearly defined? Make sure to give priority to those major issues critical to the organisation's success.

4. Assessing your Starting Point

Where are you now? It's easy to see yourselves as you want to be seen, our how you hope thinks will turn out in the future but you must get real. It is absolutely crucial to make an honest assessment of internal and external issues as they exist today. This may even involve bringing in one or more third parties. But without an accurate assessment of where you are, your strategic plan will be flawed. It’s just like planning a road trip.

5. Failure to Account for Continual Change

Both inside and outside of an organisation things are always changing, requiring you to constantly make assessments of how it affects you. Management teams must be fully aware of these forces and assess how they affect the market, your organisation, your customers, and your future.

6. Unwillingness to Change

Change is inevitable. Successful leaders must be nimble and ready to adjust with change, rather than fight against it--or even worse, ignore it. A good plan today may no longer apply tomorrow.

7. Failure to Set SMART Goals

A good strategic plan sets forth a vision, but also provides a working framework within it. Make sure that goals and milestones are set, and develop a timeframe for achieving them.

8. Failure to Put the Plan into Action

If you don't put your plan into action, then you are just wasting time. As Zig Ziglar said, "You were born to win, but to be a winner, you must plan to win, prepare to win and expect to win." Take action every minute on the things that matter.

9. Lack of Accountability

Putting the plan into action is only the beginning. If it isn’t measured it generally doesn’t get done. It's pretty simple. If no one is held accountable, nothing gets done. To make sure things get done, assign areas of accountability to specific people. Share the plan openly with the entire team, so all members are openly held accountable.

10. Failure to Monitor and Follow Through

Set regular intervals for formal review of the strategic plan and action items. Most strategic planning experts suggest this be done at least on a quarterly basis.

Start Now

If you don't have a strategic plan, or if you have one that isn't working for you, now is the time to get on track. And one last thought, does it include a Communication Strategy? 

Adodo Launches HangoutLocalHelp.com

SME’s, charities, the Public Sector are all under pressure to deliver more, simply to survive. They know technology can help but it just keeps getting in the way.  No time to plan it because of the day to day firefighting. Loneliness at the top also breeds inertia on things you don’t understand.

Well help is at hand. Adodo Consultancy has launched a FREE web application aimed specifically at helping any organisation focus on the basics of marketing in this digital age. HangoutLocalHelp.com is a tool that provides good actionable information specifically aimed at the number one challenge for the majority of businesses – finding more buyers for their products and services. The old marketing methods are being replaced through technological innovation. Just like the dodo, if you don’t adapt your business will die.

There are simple guides available to help you with things like your online reputation, social media and mobile marketing. Do you know how many reviews, good or bad, you have out there? If you don’t know check it out now as protecting your reputation is extremely important. Online reviews are second only to personal advice from a friend as the driver of purchase decisions. It is critical that your business has its Reputation Marketing in check. (Source Grabstats.com)

Tim Glynn, Adodo’s Managing Director said “our slogan has always been New Technology, Traditional Values. With the webapp we hope to assist all those like ourselves who wish to grow their businesses. Small innovative organisations really are the future and these are exciting times if you care to grab the opportunities.”

It takes time effort and lots of hit and miss to turn a prospect into a new client or customer. All that effort could be going to waste simply because of one or two things that you are not aware of. HangoutLocalHelp.com could act as your checklist to ensure that you are getting maximum return for your efforts. There are more benefits planned for the tool later in the year but for now the majority of SME’s, charities and social enterprises could improve their chances of success by obtaining their FREE copy now and acting on the information provided. As an introductory offer you could also qualify for a Complimentary £500 Market Research Voucher, but hurry as these will be limited.

Adodo has won awards for it’s Community Initiatives and it’s that ethos that is behind the new web application. Managing Director Tim Glynn has been part of the Nottingham Business Community for the past 30 years and gives his support to such organisations as ProHelp, part of Business in the Community.

BT lines – does anyone care any more?

You might think this article is about the rise and rise of mobile but you’d be wrong.  It’s a simple tale of a customer wishing to save money by reducing the number of lines they have coming into the building.

We were asked about the implications for their phone system if the lines were changed from ISDN30 to ISDN2 back in August 2012. We recommended, as they were a software house, with large broadband capacity a simple move to SIP trunks which could have been done quite quickly and migrated all of their existing Direct Dials (DDI’s). Bearing in mind their system was 9 years old they were also thinking they may have had to change the system which would’ve kind of defeated the object of saving money. However, as the system was a Splicecom maximiser a simple free software upgrade was all that was required.

In October we were advised that they were having the lines changed over by BT Local Business. In February, some 4 months later we received notification that BT were ready to change over the lines so we arranged an engineer to visit site to upgrade the system and programme it accordingly. This all went smoothly and was left awaiting the completion of the changeover. A couple of days later we were advised by the customer that there was a fault with the system as calls were not getting through. This was investigated and to our horror we found, after sitting on the phone for 45 minutes that BT had not completed the work and all calls to the DDI’s could not be delivered. This necessitated a small temporary programme change to ensure that the customer was receiving all calls to their site.

But it got worse. We then found out that there were underground problems which was delaying the delivery of the DDI’s and even though BT Local were telling the customer the installation was complete it was in fact far from complete. We had further discussions with the specialist BT ISDN team who, to their credit, did eventually advise when the job was complete. This was some 6 weeks after our initial visit. And you’d think that would be the end of it but oh no.

When the DDI’s were eventually delivered the customer found they had a new set of DDI’s which meant that all their employees contact details had changed. Furthermore the phone system had to be reprogrammed again with the new numbers. Fine at last you think. Oh no.

A week later the customer calls to say that their fax machine is not working and thinks again that there is a problem with the phone system. W advise him that the call to the fax machine is not being delivered and to check with BT. Behold, this number has dropped off the system as a Single Number DDI and BT have to reset it. As they had previously changed the delivery configuration on the ISDN from 4 to 6 digits there was a small programming change required on the system before the fax would work.

Finally, the changeover had been completed.

Like a lot of things in life complex solutions have been simplified and we take them for granted. Delivering a call over a copper wire to the correct person through a corporate phone system is a complex problem. When executed incorrectly you end up with problems that are challenging, time consuming and costly.

Stats you can’t ignore

·         Of the 8 Billion people in the world, over 6 Billion are mobile phone users. (TNS Global, 2012)

·         By 2014 mobile Internet is predicted to over take desktop Internet usage (Microsoft Tag, 2012)

·         Mobile searches for restaurants have a 90% conversion rate, 64% within the hour (Telemetrics, 2012)

·         Mobile Internet use/web traffic is up    202% in the last year (Mobile report, 2012)

4 out of 5 smartphone users use their smartphone to shop (comsScore, 2012)                                                                            

Found this article to illustrate the point that if you don’t have a mobile strategy you are missing a large chunk of your target market.  http://bit.ly/ZUmbIf

Why Upgrade your Phone System – 5 Reasons

Whilst everybody is going mobile the business telephone system is still central to a company’s communication strategy. A lot of organisations and small companies are missing out on the benefits that the new technology brings.

It now doesn’t matter if you’re a one man band or multi-site company the same feature sets are available at very affordable prices.

Below are 5 reasons to invest in or upgrade to a modern phone system today:

1. Productivity Features – One extension or a thousand systems now include call recording, mobile twinning, remote working, call monitoring, auto attendant and connectivity you’re your PC for unified communications.

2. Easier Administration – No longer do you have to balance a laptop on your head whilst whistling the National Anthem to manage a system. The majority of issues can be dealt with remotely using a web browser. Also users have more control over their individual phones.

3. Money Saving – Maintenance charges, adds moves and changes can all be reduced because of the greater efficiency of the systems. Also the option to replace ISDN lines for SIP trunks which are more flexible and can potentially reduce your monthly costs. Homeworkers can be connected to the system and remove the worry about accounting for their company usage on home phones as it’s all done through the system.

 4. Future Proof, An Investment – Because today’s systems are software driven upgrades provide you with the latest feature sets without having to make elaborate changes to hardware. As an example we recently upgraded an early IP system, 9 years old to the latest version of software which means that it now functions as if they had bought the system yesterday.

5. Peripherals - IP phones can also be linked to peripherals like door phones, door cameras and building security cameras; giving you better control and security over your business.

It’s surprising how many companies rush for the latest mobile phone deal but their office phone is delivering a poor experience for callers and employees alike. First impressions count and calls to your office need to help show that you really do mean business.

Finally, don’t let the lack of capital hold you back. There are ways to finance these benefits on a monthly basis and the ROI speaks for itself.

Call us now on 0800 092 3333 or visit http://bit.ly/XNCdDD

What did the snow do to your productivity?

There are many reasons given for poor performance over the course of the year but ultimately we all want to meet our targets.

The picture to the left is it?
 a)  Winter Wonderland  or
 b)  Productivity hell

If  b) then what are you doing within your business to ensure that the next 'excuse' does not affect your goals for the year?

We may have a few ideas for you. Give us a call to discuss your challenges over a cup of hot chocolate.

0800 849 3333