Better Buying

As well as our scheduled Foundations of Commercial Contract workshop, this week has seen our first 'Better Buying' workshop, a customised event developed for one of our favourite training clients.

This was a great opportunity  to look at negotiation from the other side of the fence. A while ago we did a big project for ntl, re-negotiating some of their software and support agreements. Our efforts delivered £1.25million of savings, and showed how much could be achieved with a bit of planning, preparation and creative thinking - all of which add up to ace negotiations! 

So pulling together everything we'd learned from this exercise and other buy-side negotiations, with our extensive sell-side experience enabled us to create a cracking half-day workshop. It was a very intensive morning, but really helped the client to focus on what they needed to do to become more effective purchasers. And of course this will, in turn, help them become a more effective selling organisation, as they can pass on a share of their savings to their own customers while retaining the rest on the bottom line!

Well here's to you, Mrs Taylor!

Last Saturday, we lost Alison Moss from the Devant team. Luckily for us, her successor - Alison Taylor - is just as fantastic!

Confused? For those of you who haven't been watching Alison's feverish preparations over the last few months, I'm delighted to announce that Saturday was the date of her wedding to Dave Taylor. So our Alison became Mrs Taylor and Dave became a very lucky man.

Congratulations, Alison and Dave! We all wish you a very long and happy life together.

Spreading the Message

Our latest Marketing Strategy Meeting was hosted yesterday at the Institute of Directors in Reading by Rivercalm, our marketing folks. The venue was great - well run, and just a few minutes from the station. Quick tip - if you're driving to a meeting there, remember to call ahead and book your space in their secure underground car park!

The Devant team's marketing challenge for the next twelve months is how to spread the word about the importance of good commercial contract training in developing profitable business relationships. We talked around the issues that face companies of all sizes - and how it is that we expect folks to be able to explain contract terms when they've never received any useable training. There's a world of difference between a legal lecture (which, for most business people, is effective as a sedative but that's about all!) and good commercial contract training. 

Of course I would say that, wouldn't I? But seriously, we do tend to get pretty evangelical about training because it's only when everyone in the business understands the impact of the contract structure on the success of a deal that the company's sales efforts can be translated into profit. It's so frustrating to see companies with fantastic sales teams and highly capable delivery folks allowing their margin to fall through the gaps between the two. This is a gap that can be plugged with some good training - on both the sales and the delivery side - so that more of the revenue from the deal makes it to the bottom line.

Mobile Miracles

Last week I took a brief trip to Sydney. It was a holiday, of sorts - an opportunity to visit an old friend who'd just had her third baby, to provide some domestic support and get my share of baby cuddles!

It was wonderful to see my friend and her family, but the trip was also noteworthy for me as an experiment in truly mobile working. Thanks to the glory of the Macbook, which comes complete with built-in camera and wireless networking, I was able to video-chat with clients in the UK while my Australian hosts slept. During a stop-over in Singapore, my children were amazed to be able to see the buzz of Singapore airport in the background when I called them up for a quick i-chat. The other passengers were a bit bemused at me chatting to my computer, but I thought it was great.
We Devant folks do get some odd looks from clients when we whip out our Macs - they're usually associated more with graphic designers than contract specialists. But I love my Mac. It does all the usual PC stuff - just with a little more style ;0).