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Name	John Abbott
Job Title	Business Development Manager / Sales Executive
Organization	Decibel Technology
Member Since	31 Mar 2008
Areas of Expertise	B2B Marketing, Content Marketing and Strategy, E-commerce, Strategy and Planning, Web Design
Contact Details	Email: Telephone: 020 7392 2619 Mobile: 07854 126736 Address: 14 Copper Beech Close , Barkingside, Essex, IG5 0RX, United Kingdom

About Me

Personal profile:

 ·       An enthusiastic, dynamic, tenacious professional, who thrives on challenge.

·       A wide and varied knowledge of commercial activity gained within a major media organisation and digital companies.

·       Driven by profit and service. Always searching for more opportunities.

·       Proven relationship-building experience.

·       Recent digital marketing experience.

·       Ideas driven – creating, explaining, extensive experience of brainstorming on ‘new’ and or ‘fresh’ ideas and business development mechanisms. Entrepreneurial, creative thinker. Belief that ever-evolving ideas create profit.

·       Able to find solutions to problems that might prevent achievement of goals. Adapt, change, grow and innovate with a keen eye for commercial opportunities.

·       Team builder through empowerment and discussion. Draws the team into the challenges, getting them fully involved and motivated.

·       Analytical and methodical. Allowing focus on increasing profits without increasing the costbase disproportionately.

·       Possesses excellent written, verbal and numeracy skills.

·       A confident, resilient team player with strong communication skills.

·       A proven track record of performing under pressure and achieving targets to tight deadlines.

·       An approachable, personable individual who interacts well with clients and colleagues alike.

·       An accountable and responsible individual adaptable to different environments.

·       Good understanding of IT systems, computer packages, processes and skills. 

My Links

Framed Football Shirts
The home of Framed Football Shirts

Career History

Education and Qualifications

Position:                        Business Manager

                                    November 2006             - March 2008                       

                                    Harlequin Solutions – www.solutions.co.uk

 The company covers the following areas within its business:

·       Content Management solutions

·       E-Learning

·       E-Commerce

·       End-to-end Training Solutions – (Web, Design. Print, People, Management, Desktop, Prince2 and ITIL skills)

·       Knowledge Management

·       Document Management

Current customers include the Charity Commission, (Transport for London (TFL), London Centre of Excellence (LCE), United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS), North Mersey Health Informatics Service, Birmingham Children’s Hospital, BP, Prudential, Baker Tilly and numerous NHS Trusts and District Councils amongst others.

 Achievements:

·       Exceeding target of £125k per quarter for 5 consecutive quarters in a collaborative sales effort during 2007/2008

·       Generation of ‘fresh’ marketing ideas for NHS sales drive

·       Big wins included the following:

                                                      iLuka (Chinese Olympic hospitality site)

                                                      Birmingham Children’s Hospital

                                                      Rotherham PCT

                                                      Devon PCT Extranet

                                                      Ealing PCT

                                                      Bolton PCT

 Responsibilities:                              

·       Account managing the existing customer base and customer relationship building.

·       Driving the web development business onto challenging targets both within the public and private sectors.

·       Ensuring that all new website builds are accompanied by an in-house maintenance, support and hosting arrangement, thereby ensuring a flow of recurrent revenue.

·       Creating compelling and consistent marketing strategies for the business.         

·       Driving revenue and profit for the business via partnerships and referrals.

·       Enhancing and improving administrative systems and processes.

Other aspects of the role:                                  

·       Cold and warm calling.

·       Lead generation work.

·       Reappraising the marketing strategy and turning words into action.

·       Following up all up-sell opportunities where they exist.

·       Liaising with web production staff to ensure that web projects achieve appropriate milestones.

·       Liaising with web production staff on evaluation, accessibility and usability and other technical issues.

·       Assisting in strategies for exhibitions, conferences and seminars.

·       Proof reading copy.

·       Recruitment of staff, permanent and temporary.

·       Advertising strategies.

·       Assisting the ‘training’ sales team in direct sales.

·       Assisting the ‘training’ sales team at directly at events and exhibitions.

·       Partner acquisition and liaison.

·       Data management including list selection, price negotiation and strategic planning.

·       Strategic work on the sales ‘pipeline’.

Previous position:            Deputy Head of Enterprise

                                    April 2001 to March 2006                       

                                    Express Newspapers / Northern & Shell Media

My role was to oversee all commercial activity for the Enterprise Department, a pivotal management role within a major media owner – (National newspapers and consumer magazines).

·       Highly focused on adding directly to bottom-line profits.

·       Full P&L responsibility for Enterprises including budgeting and forecasting.

·       Extensive brainstorming on ‘new’ and or ‘fresh’ ideas and business development mechanisms.

·       Effective exploitation of entire company portfolio.

·       Commercial decision-making.

·       Financial analysis and reporting including problem solving.

·       Staff supervision and coaching.

·       Application of workflow and process methods.

·       Contractual discussion and creation.

·       Page make-up of advertisements.

·       Database creation and maintenance.

I have listed below some examples of specific enhancements to the business that I achieved:

 Enterprises:

1.      Increased profits by 132% over a six-year span, 2000 to 2005.

2.      Profit levels climbed from £2.5m to £5.8m.

3.      Total staff change during 2004, four old ‘legacy’ staff made redundant, replaced by three new Business Managers.

4.      Per head profit ratio of £978k with overall cost base of only £368k.

 Opera Telecom:

1.      Played a pivotal role in creating a large ‘Guarantee’ deal from Network Provider from a previous Service Provider environment.

2.      Rolled this deal out ensuring stringent SLA’s were adhered to.

Travelcare:

1.     Managed the launch and implementation of the Express Travel Shop for Express Newspapers via Travelcare (Largest independent travel agent in the UK - part of the Co-Op). 

2.      This deal has been running alongside Express Travel Reader Offers since June 2005.

 Express Newspapers Publishing:

1.      I played a key role in planning and implementing the route to a self-publishing environment (early 2004) alongside an already existing licensing methodology.

2.      Key decision influencer in all publishing projects.

Express Newspapers IP:

1.     Shepherded Express Newspapers IP and Artwork assets over many years including Rupert Bear, Giles, James Bond, etc. 

2.      Resulting in a major deal with Entertainment Rights, where two-thirdsof the IP for Rupert Bear was sold for £6m.

Reader Offers Outsourcing:

1.      In order to maximize departmental profitability, I organized a major headcount review, culminating in Reader Offer production and administration being outsourced.

2.      The processes, both external and internal were changed / adapted to enable tasks to be completed with less headcount.

3.      Went from arduous five person to single person process with external suppliers bearing administrative burden.

Earlier Employment History

Administrative capabilities

I have worked in a fast-paced office environment for over 30 years. This enables me to plan, organise and create efficient and tidy office practices.  I can ensure that that best use of IT is made and that results are delivered efficiently, cost-effectively and consistently.

Financial

·       Full P&L reporting and accountability

·       Payables

·       Receivables

·       Planning and analysis

·       Budgeting

·       Forecasting

·       Speculative projections and targets

·       Account reconciliations

·       Bank reconciliations

 Office Management

·       IT specification

·       Hardware and or software selection

·       Facilities management

·       Develop efficient processes

·       Change Management

Recruitment

·       Job specification

·       Ad creation

·       Candidate selection

·       Interview candidate

Staff supervision

·       Setting of goals

·       Coaching & Learning

·       Motivation

·       Appraisals

Forum posts by John Abbott

• International payment providers, 5 Sep 2008
• Content Management & ASP.NET, 14 Apr 2008