Greetings!
As we plan for 2010 here is some information about opportunities and suggestions to ensure you are well prepared to take advantage of them.
Enjoy the Christmas break and I wish you a successful and prosperous new year. |
| Construction Recession Over? |
No doubt you read the news that the Office of National Statistics have published quarter 3 construction output statistics showing a 2% increase on the previous quarter indicating that the construction recession ended last June. Receiving less publicity was a release 6 days later stating that new orders in quarter 3 fell by 5%. This, no doubt, reflects what most people reading this will have experienced.
However there is hope for 2010, especially if you make heating boilers. Another area of opportunity is infrastructure with a forecast published by Infrastructure Journal that Public Private Partnership work between 2010 and 2012 could be worth £30 billion.
Even if you are not in infrastructure it is fair to expect 2010 to be better than 2009 and companies do need to prepare for this. That includes training your sales and marketing team, researching markets and being prepared to take on the biggest opportunity - sustainability. These are all areas where the Competitive Advantage team can help you. |
| New Member of the Sustainability Team |
Bill Wright has joined Competitive Advantage as an associate. Formally Corporate Energy and Environment Manager of the John Lewis Partnership, covering both Waitrose supermarkets and John Lewis Department stores. Prior to this he was Chief Electrical Engineer for the group for over 10 years.
He is Chairman of the Electrical Safety Council,and is a Director of Summitskills, the sector skills council associated with Building Services Engineering. He is also on the Institution of Electrical Engineers committee which produces the IEE Wiring Regulations.
Bill brings an understanding of the client side of procuring sustainable products as well as a detailed understanding of the electrical engineering sector. He will be working as part of the Competitive Advantage sustainability team to deliver training, workshops and consultancy on adopting a sustainable approach. Other members of the team are Chris Ashworth, Jeremy Sumeray and Steve Miller. |
| Selling to Specifers |
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Our next open course, Effective Specification Selling, will be held at the Building Centre in London on 28th January 2010. The one day course provides an understanding of the pressures and influences that drive the specification process and explains how to use these to build relationships and effectively use sales tools to close a sale.
If you do sell to specifiers you will find the RIBA Enterprises Monthly Briefing useful. This free email newsletter includes useful articles and marketing tips. They also have a Q&A facility for subscribers, focused on issues of importance to manufacturers, product suppliers and distributors. |
| Selling into Residential |
The next CIMCIG event, which promises to be interesting to anyone selling into the residential market is How to Penetrate the Housing Sector on 10th February 2010. This afternoon seminar is designed to give suppliers to the public and private housing sectors insights into how they can develop these markets following the steep decline in the past 18 months. Speakers are being finalised and will be announced in early January. |
