Distortion Control

For a while now I’ve been talking about the changes we are making. At some stage these take effect and we witness their impact. We haven’t implemented the new marketing plan yet but the Duty Manager system is well under way.

What we’ve realised is for the three or so weeks we spend on the road as a driver, there is a belief we need to work harder to sustain our earnings. In reality it is a distortion in the snapshot reports we are using which leads to this assumption.

Over two years ago I wrote a blog about facts and analysis. If you couple this with the figures we can extract from our database there is the potential to gain quality information. I think it is time to introduce this as reports in our monthly management meeting.

Inadvertently what has happened is a greater need for understanding of figures has developed across a wider part of our team. It is exactly what was planned before the changes. Luckily the tools built in to our software will help reach team decisions we can all be proud of.

Happy Birthday

My blogging and approach to running our business has changed you know. It goes back to last year when I became paranoid about reaching the big four-oh. I’ve still got a couple of years to go yet but even so, I have a personal belief that if I haven’t achieved something significant by the age of 40, I probably never will.

To some extent I went a bit mad last year trying to achieve rapid growth by working lots of hours and putting in effort but didn’t include the rest of the team. It came to a point where I lost my way and even came close to quitting! On reflection, it was a good thing because once I stopped trying so hard, I could observe and learn.

Getting in the car as ‘just a driver’ lead to more sincere conversations with our customers and a re-discovery of enjoyment for what we do. It made me realise I would plough on with new ideas regardless of what others thought when I was younger. Now I’m getting older, there is recognition for sensitivity toward others.

Maybe I am reaching a stage in life where I appreciate leadership is required and it requires a strong and robust state of mind to take on the challenges a business will face? Leadership also needs a degree of objectivity to ensure you can see the woods for the trees. I thought it was just old age but apparently, it is known as maturity!

Easter Eggs

We have seasonal trends at DrivenByQ. You can guarantee business travel will slow down during school holidays. Christmas and New Year are very quiet and Easter has an effect which can only be measured retrospectively.

If we compare turnover figures to twelve months ago, there are dramatic differences simply because Easter was on a different week. Once it is out of the way though, we can collect interesting data.

For many of our customers, it is a new financial year and it reveals how much they plan to travel. I have always said April is a good indication for the rest of the year. This is significant because we can plan when to spend.

In previous years we have found, April can also indicate if you should not spend! This April is our eighth birthday at DrivenByQ. We are hoping it is safe to invest more money in growth than ever before.

The Key To Success

If you look back over the last few blogs they all talk about a more structured approach to the way we do things as a business. This year in particular, success and ambition are back on the menu.

The main thing which has changed in 2013 is ‘the way’ we plan for growth and development. This is backed by a new belief in what we can achieve and a concerted team effort to get there.

Many times I've been questioned about the wisdom of writing a blog. Do my thoughts and feelings about DrivenByQ coupled with strategy as a business reveal too much to the competition?

Well, I’m confident if I give away our biggest secret, it cannot be replicated or adopted by others. So what is it? Easy! The key to achieving success is our culture.

Performance Remapping Part 2

Last week, I wrote about the changes we made at the start of this year and the effect they are having. The truth is, last year we grew and branched out from our comfort zone of Wrexham Industrial Estate to target Deeside Industrial Park. It is near-by but even so, it posed a new challenge.

Initially we took the decision to run Deeside as a separate entity. In hindsight this was not a good idea because it starved our resources and isolated parts of our team. There were also constant questions about the boundaries for admin work. These were issues we needed to iron out if we were to grow bigger.

This year we are running Wrexham and Deeside as one large area (in terms of our administration work) and this has made things simpler. It has facilitated the new Duty Manager system (one driver becoming full-time manager with no driving) and the monthly management meetings have enhanced our communication.

On reflection this is starting to utilise the capacity of our booking system. As we add more customers, drivers and journeys it exploits the economies of scale our electronic systems were built for. It is reassuring as volumes increase, rather than struggling to cope, we are simply becoming more efficient, profitable and ambitious.