john

So after two years at bit10 in a fantastic role as finance & operations director I’m moving on with sadness. I had not planned to go, but I have been lured by a fantastic opportunity back in the world of business recovery and turnaround.

bit10 is a fantastic organisation who consult with and deliver real value to some great clients. Every client and solution is unique, and the bit10 team ensure that the clien’t s journey is nothing short of excellent.

It’s been a real honour and pleasure to help lead and be part of such an excellent team.

As a small legacy I have been part of a recruitment process which has delivered an exceptional replacement part-time Director of Finance in Karen Morrall, who I’m sure will be first class in helping to continue the current initiatives and drive the business forward to the next level.

I won’t be too far away, so I look forward to hearing of the many continued successes and growth of bit10

Long live the spreadsheet revolution!

TTFN

John

I’ve abandoned my blog; left in unloved and uncared for in a corner with no food and water

Will I be reported to the RSPCB, the new body for ensuring happy blogging worldwide?

In fairness to my blog, I have had a brief affair with another being; that thing called work. I think it best to confess all to my blog, seek pennitance and rebuild that loving feeling that we once had, but the magic sparkle in our relationship has gone…..

So what’s been keeping me busy? Well firstly back in September we had the happy arrival of a lovely girl - Eleanor Kate. For the first couple of months of her life she had taken precenence over blogging! Mind you, I’d choose blogging over nappies any day.

Also we completed the aquisition of the business and assets of Networks New media. Now I’ve bought and sold a few businesses in my time, but as an advisor I’d always walked away when the deal is done, leaving the management team to integrate things. Now that’s the really tough job, and we’ve been focusing hard on getting it right. This is a really exciting opportunity for bit10 and we’re really excited by adding value to the Networks customer base.

Also I’ve been continuing my journey into the excellence model, and I’m currently undertaking an assessor training programme. This is not for the faint hearted as it involves scoring a 100 page case study as “homework”. We’re really excited about achieving the standard “Investor In Excellence” standard - it will be hard work but totally rewarding. We’re working closely with Midlands Excellence and thanks to Judy Hart and Phil Sykes for all your help so far.

Anyway, back to the point. With life (hopefully) more under control I will return to love, feed, nourish and care for my blog. Am I forgiven?

After holding out for a year I’ve finally dumped vodafone and ported my number into bit10’s orange company phone scheme.

At home my Vodafone coverage was reasonable (although occasionally patchy), but it appears that I only get Orange reception when hanging out of a bedroom window clinging on upside-down with my toenails; not an ideal state of affairs.

Now I wouldn’t mind this if I lived in the middle of nowhere, but I’m in a big village on the edge of the Solihull/Birmingham connurbation. There’s over 2500 houses with a population of around 7,000.

Even more surprising is the coverage map on Orange’s website, which from afar seems like most of the UK is indeed orange, but up close is a lot patchier. At street level the map says that I should have perfect coverage, but by deduction I think my house must be in the 100m square “hole” in the local coverage (pictured)

So come on Orange; please put a new aerial in one of my neighbours’ gardens (as long as I can’t see it - NIMBY!) because I’d love to be bright orange instead of living in the hole! In the meantime I remain incommunicado at home apart from BT, email, smoke signals and carrier pigeon, all of which are slighly more reliable than good old Orange.

Here at bit10 we have a fantastic Continuing Professional Development (CPD) scheme, giving every member of the team at least 12 days a year to further their personal and professional skills.

In addition Stuart has pioneered this year’s “Hack day” - an additional creative day when anyone who wants to can spend a day dreaming up whacky ideas, or developing less off-the-wall ideas which will hopefully become commercially viable. Just under half of us are busy being extra creative, even the humble beancounter is having a go and enjoying it!

So the Pizza has just arrived to sustain those creative juices through the afternoon. Great idea Stu, can’t wait to see the results. For those who’ve missed out this year, see you at Hack Day 2007.

I’ve been hooked on the BBC’s business reality shows, and yearn for the next series of the apprentice, if only to find out what happened to Michelle who is apparently having Syed’s baby!

In the meantime we have Dragon’s den on Thurday nights, 8pm BBC2 which is a must watch. I’ve experienced the world of start-ups and equity raising, and I have the utmost respect for all the would-be investees who are pitching to the dragons - It’s a tough ask for those with an investable concept (like Alpine last week ((although their website could do with some TLC)), let alone those who do not.

Last week’s episode 2 featured our very own Marion Burns who runs snip snap at Hatton Country World where we take William for his hair cuts. Much as I love the concept I’m not surprised that the dragons’ didn’t bite, as there is no real USP and minimal barriers to entry.

What did annoy me was the situation with the fantastic Alsi from empty me. Asli had designed a portable picnic bag and has sold over 800 for more than £50 each - not bad for a start up - that’s proof of concept which is all important. Asli wanted £50k to expand her business, loose change for the Dragons. Fair enough, Doug Richard thought that it was a lifestyle business and Asli has not been over-ambitious with the business plan. Duncan and Richard liked the idea, but thought it was uninvestable; again fair call.

What annoyed me was Deborah Meaden’s one-time offer to take 51% of Asli’s business for £50k. The concept of Dragon’s Den is to take a minority share in a business, and then offer the entrepreneur your help and assistance to rapidly grow the business to exit in a 3-5 year timescale with super profits. That’s what it’s all about. It’s not about taking a majority share in a business - in general the entrepreneur will be stifled after loosing control of the business, and the Dragon is unlikely to have the spare time to completely manage and control the venture. I’m sure that Deborah would have offered much to the business, but 51% was too much of a pill to swallow.

So well done Asli for holding out, I hope you get the Investment, and more importantly the investor, you need to drive the business forward. 

So the evening of 20 July 2006 saw four finely honed athletes (me, Cathie, Robin and Alex) head off to the Virgin Gym at Blythe Valley.

The mission - to swim a mile each for Sport Relief. OK, so that Walliams chappie swam the English Channel in 10.5 hours, which is seriously impressive, but here at bit10 we’re all tied up for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award, so a mile was more than enough for us.

Besides, it took me an hour to do the mile, I’d still be doggy paddling somewhere near Folkstone now if I’d tried the Channel!

So a HUGE thank you to everyone who sponsored both me and the rest of the team. Between us we raised just over £300, or 0.0025% of Sport Relief’s £12.5m total. Actually we raised a bit more since those kind people at the Treasury pay the gift aid on top of donations. Incidentally David Walliams raised over £1m, an amazing 10% of the total Sport Relief donations!

Also thanks to the helpful people ot Virgin Solihull who let us use their facilities for free, on the promise that they got a mention!

For those interested in results Alex was fastest, with Cathie only a couple of lengths behind. Robin was third with yours truely being laggard by about 10 lengths. You know the old saying (often used by loosers) - “it’s the taking part that counts”! 

In training for the Channel next year…..

John

Right, I’m not tight but I really don’t like waste, so I thought I’d share the story about my car.

My Mother-in-law worked for one of the UK’s largest insurers for over 20 years, and never had a motor claim in her life, until a couple of months ago when she unfortunately managed to reverse into my car parked on the drive.

Having got a £500 quote to have it fixed we decided we’d better claim on her insurance and my car was duely picked up on a transporter and taken to get fixed.

The insurers gave me a courtesy car - a Vauxhall Vecra which was quite sporty and proved suitable for rallying round the Warwickshire countryside (within the speed limits of course!). Following a previous excellent experience with a car repair I had foolishly assumed that it would be taken on a Tuesday, assessed on a Wednesday, Fixed on Thursday / Friday and returned to me within a week. Not quite….

I began to miss my car , not least the hands free car kit which made talking whilst driving a legal activity! After two weeks I phoned the garage only to find that the insurance company had not even visited to assess and authorize the repair.

After a bit of a rant to the insurers I asked for a like-for-like car to be delivered, and they sent me a saab convertible, and the sporty areo version at that! I’ve had the Saab for 10 days in the UK’s heatwave, and as far as I’m concerned the insurers can keep my car until Autumn!

But the point of the story is that a minor dent (costing £500 to fix) has so far cost the insurance company around £2,000 in delivery/hire charges, and this is growing by the day. An efficient organisation would only have taken my car into the garage when they knew it could be assessed, and have a provisional slot booked in to fix it. An efficient operation would have had my car back with me inside a week.

Inneficiency like this just pushes up our car insurance premiums. I note that this UK plc insurer has a pension scheme defecit of  £126m, and has recently closed off it’s final salary pension scheme. Perhaps if they focused on profitable operations they may be able to pay my mother-in-law the increased pension she needs when she has to pay her higher car insurance premium!

 So far it’s been three weeks and counting….. 

So this is my first ever blog - how exciting is that!

Now most of my colleagues at work are much more technical than me - I’m just a humble Chartered Accountant whose role is to help keep the good ship bit10 sailing on course; with the crew enjoying the sunny days and looking out to avoid any submerged icebergs.

So not being a software developer or a designer I’ll find it difficult to write about “beautiful code” or a “great website architecture”. I could harp on about “a beautiful balance sheet” or “an awesome XL spreadsheet”, but I’m not sure that I’d generate a lot of cult blog followers….

So instead I’ll blog about the odd things of note from a beancounters’ perspective. Join me in my journey into the unknown….