Author: Graham Bunting

This particular saying, whilst in certain circumstances may hold true does NOT always hold true.

Having been involved for many years (more than 22 years in fact gosh) in the telecommunications market, I have seen many changes and lots of exciting technology that really enhances the way businesses can service and support their customers, and enable people to work flexibly. All of this carries a burden of cost – after all the vendor pays to develop the clever software and hardware to support it, plus lots of testing to ensure the deliverables are truly reliable and resilient so as not to let you down. It is therefore no surprise that this all requires customers to make an investment from their hard won revenues.

Refreshing then to learn that competitive pressures and other factors are bringing down the cost of communicating and new technologies are enabling greater choice – all of which results in opportunities to reduce telecom expenses. Savings of 40%-50% are not uncommon especially for companies who have a number of locations, and a lot of land line to mobile calls.

Is your company wasting money to the tune of an additional 60% over and above what it could be? I would be surprised if you couldn’t save money and there is no burden of cost for new equipment – How compelling is that?

Ernst & Young,  Slaughter and May and Rolls Royce all benefited from a free no obligation consultation and now enjoy the regular lower costs that you could.

Listen to language – its very enlightening. You can hear the self-limiting beliefs that people have “become attached to” and really own. People will argue for their weaknesses and guard them like a highly prized possession. And yet these are actions that hold us back ultimately from where we desire to be and certainly from where we could be. For example, I recently heard some of the following statements which I’m certain you’ll recognise.

I can’t do that because…
Well that’s me…
He makes me so mad…
I can’t help worrying…

Can you see the patterns here? These comments are firmly in the effect area and they are often caused by our belief systems and experiences. One of the best examples of this I heard was during a recent meeting where we were discussing our children. My friend (name withheld to protect identity) started to describe a series of conversations he had had with his son whom was described as a trifle lazy. In fact he had said to his son frequently “you are so lazy”. During a later encounter he had asked his son WHY he wasn’t doing something, to which his son casually replied “it’s because I’m lazy dad”! Talk about give a dog a bad name. I think this is a good illustration of language and it’s impact.

Long before I became a coach, I held a belief about coaching and what it was, and now realise that I actually hadn’t ever given it much more than a passing consideration. I certainly never considered the value coaches bring to people. Now I realise from the basic premise of coaching (the individual already has all of the resources necessary to move themselves forward) how valuable it can be. Often people find themselves “stuck” somewhere, hanging on to less than useful limiting beliefs and unable to move forward to where they want to be. A good coach can help with this movement – drawing on your own resources and enabling greater self belief – leaving behind the unhelpful and limiting beliefs. Having been coached myself, I found many moments that were EUREKA moments of realisation.

Gartner states that around 80% of telecoms bills have errors that are never found or reported, whilst up to 35% of all fixed telecoms assets are surplus to business requirements. In fact, according to research, more than 60% of firms do not have any kind of accurate inventory of their telecoms estate.
Which is quite scary when you think that analysts regularly report external communications costs as being a top-three, non-payroll expense in most large organisations. The good news is that this can simply be rectified and often without changing your service provider – http://www.peraconsulting.co.uk/save-money-on-telecoms/

If like me you are getting to grips with the latest trends in social media with the likes of twitter, facebook, linkedin, friendfeed etc, then you are probably familiar with the regularity of the updates and in the case of the micro blogging of twitter then you like me are probably wondering how on earth some people manage to send so many tweets every day as well as holding down a full time job. There is a whole industry grown up off the back of this new phenomenon, with applications galore to provide access whilst on the go (from your mobile) and to automate much of this. My thought here, is that with the increased use of automation – does this take away the personal touch and some of the very purpose of social media – being personal contact? I am comfortable with a degree of automation, but how much is too much – for example if everyone is just "sending" who is reading and responding?

How cool is this – wordpress enabling posting from any email address anywhere in the World. Outstanding! Check it out for yourself http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2009/05/12/post-by-email/

and remember “Life’s journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body, but rather to slide in sideways, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, screaming ‘Woo Hoo, what a ride!’ (anon)

Have a great bank holiday weekend everyone