In the busy and confused world of information technology it's easy for your voice to be lost in a sea of similar companies all going after the same clients. This was the world that C&C Technology Consulting used to live in, which is why we decided a business coach could help to differentiate us from the competition. Today we define ourselves as ‘a company that provides independent guidance to mid-market businesses that want strategic value from their IT investments'. We know what we are, what we do and who is best served by us.

Through a chance meeting at a Top Consultant meeting, John Foster, C&C Operations Director, was introduced to Shirlaws. John persuaded the rest of the Board to meet with Nic Rixon and Martin Williams, two Shirlaws Business Coaches. At the first meeting Nic and Martin explained "the stages model", trying to figure out where we were in the lifecycle of a company. It certainly led to some good debate, finishing with agreement to move forward with four projects: positioning, distribution, sales process and functionality. We felt going into the meeting that we had a sales problem; in reality it was more to do with focus. These projects were the most appropriate to address this issue.

Positioning was probably the most important of the four projects for us. For years our clients - including some big corporate names - had sung our praises. What was confusing to us was that they never, or rarely, recommended us to their peers. They knew we were good and were very happy with the quality of services we provided, but outside of what we delivered to them they had little idea of who we were as a company and what we did. We would spend our time coming up with new, well-thought-out ideas to launch to the market.

But what was the market? At the time of starting our projects 80% of our revenue came from two major clients, so all of our business development efforts were based upon winning new business from the same type of clients. We spent a lot of time developing contacts and networking through the client contact list, talking to them about big projects, getting excited - but the project would never close. So why was this? Positioning gave us the answer.

The starting point was to understand who our target market was. Through exercises led by Nic and Martin, plus supporting data from our existing client base, we soon realised that people buy from us on the basis of relationships.

We also analysed what services we took to market in relation to our clients, resulting in a key learning, "why would the enterprise client want our services when they had people who do what we do?" It was, at the end of the analysis, little wonder to us that we had good relations with enterprise contacts - we were the same type of people doing the same job. This made us look at our target market in a different way and ask the question "who needs our services the most?"

We then started to look at our product, which in the past was basically whatever the client wanted to buy. One of the key pieces of feedback from our clients was that they loved it when we had no vendor alignment; independence was a key factor to them. We also found out that we had been sucked in by our biggest clients, losing focus on what we really wanted to deliver. This led us to understand that we should be independent and have clarity of our product offering.

The project continued to look at our service and pricing, resulting in the position we hold today where we are clear on what we do, who we do it for, how we do it and how much we charge for it.

Today we are still engaged with Nic and Martin, still learning and still enjoying the experience. We work with mid-market businesses guiding clients in how to solve their IT challenges. What has this meant to the business? From a cultural perspective we have achieved cohesion and focus within the company that did not exist before. From a commercial perspective we have a pipeline of new business that is stronger than it has been for a number of years.

As part of the positioning project we set out our cultural and commercial expectations. Today, as we near the end of our implementation of the project, we can report that we have achieved or are on the way to achieving the following:

• An increase in revenue
• Improved operating margin
• We have strong positioning, brand and financial performance
• Provide opportunities to achieve rate uplifts and charge for activities that are currently given away as part of the sales process
• Expanded client base
• Enhanced relationships and a better understanding of our distribution opportunities
• Improved communication both internally and externally
• Improved staff morale

All of our staff can now speak with confidence about the company and tell you that C&C provide independent guidance to businesses that want strategic value from their IT investments.

So that is C&C Technology today, a company with "Focus" thanks to the support of our friends at Shirlaws.