Route Planning

If you were to go back and read some of my blogs this year, a lot of my time was spent fire fighting. In other words, I was dealing with day-to-day issues that popped up in business. I sometimes think of it as being on board a ship and running around fixing small problems.

In the last few blogs I’ve written about changes we’ve made and that I now have more time and freedom. It has taken time to delegate tasks (like invoicing, payments, driver rotas and customer enquiries) but right now, I absolutely love the fact I’ve got the time to walk up on deck, stand on the bow and take a look around.

So what do I see? Well, looking back there is a finely tuned machine. Our ship (DrivenByQ) is fitted with robust but futuristic technology, our team is incredibly efficient and there are distinguished regular customers on board (in some of the World’s biggest brands). We can justifiably be proud of our achievements so far.

Now if I look out across the sea and think about where we are going, we are ready to venture in to new waters, with new drivers already itching to join (the crew), more customers (or passengers) aware that we are coming and we have enough fuel (cash in bank) to take us on a journey. So the only thing left to do is plot the next stage of our expedition.

Changing Gear

In the last two weeks, we've made some big changes at DrivenByQ. They have been long overdue. My last blog mentioned we’ve been operating with reduced man power for most of this year and it has affected growth. Now that we are back to full strength, we can finally implement some postponed strategic decisions.

A few months ago I wrote another blog about my time with a business coach. The most important issue to come out of this was that my time should be diverted to the tasks where I contribute maximum value to DrivenByQ - such as pursuing new customers, working on promotion and reviewing the business objectively.

My time needed rescheduling but first we had to discuss this as a team and make decisions together. I'm sure any successful manager will talk about the importance of 'buy-in' from their team when introducing changes. Surprisingly we reached a conclusion pretty quick with little debate.

So what have we done? Well, so far we have introduced another full-time driver. My hours on the road have been halved (and condensed), I have greater financial compensation, the marketing budget is in use and a certain spark of enthusiasm has been re-ignited. I wonder which one will have the greatest effect?

Mirror, Signal, Manoeuvre

Last Christmas, I set the goal of doubling our turnover – quite a big task in the current economic climate! In order to achieve this goal, I knew a number of things would need to change, especially our promotion. Time would need to be allocated to our marketing strategy and its implementation.

In reality our growth is only 43% so far this year. The reason being each member of our management team needed extended time off to deal with issues in their personal lives. In support my time was spent on the day-to-day running of the company. As a consequence our growth plan was partially suspended.

On reflection, it has been a positive experience because it demonstrated our overwhelming resilience in times of crises. It has proven the strong bond between our team and it has accentuated the importance of allocating time for a leader to step back and achieve clarity when forming a strategy.

It requires a degree of ambition and a certain confidence for goals to be achieved. As the Managing Director of a company it is a new challenge to instil that belief in others so wholeheartedly. I really do believe however that once that belief is embraced and infused, the future success of our company, our team and all of our hopes and dreams can only be ever be one step closer to reality.

Past, Present & Future

Ask a child if they know what a Pager is and they will probably look at you blank. It wasn’t so long ago that Pagers were the latest technology. It is the same for those huge analogue mobile phones and their enormous battery packs people used to carry around.

Today we have email, social media and Internet on our mobile phones, not to mention cameras, Bluetooth, apps and Satellite Navigation. Processors are evolving too and offering the functionality of HD video recording, streaming, voice control and even artificial intelligence.

This year, Motorola released the Atrix. A Smart Phone that can be used in a laptop carcass or a docking station (with a keyboard and monitor) as a PC replacement. The device sets a trend because it utilises the phone’s processor to power different pieces of equipment.

So what is the future? Well what if mobiles could integrate with a human body. What if pharmaceutical companies replaced medication with software which monitored and tweaked our DNA through telemetry? Would we ever get ill? Would heart-attacks still occur? Would hospitals need to exist? Furthermore, would humans still need to age?