How
to Be the UK's Fastest Growing Company
You probably operate in a highly competitive, ‘mature’ market sector
where exponential rates of revenue growth may seem impossible to achieve. The
evidence from Ambition 24Hours - the fastest growing UK private company, operating
in the ‘mature’ healthcare recruitment sector - may persuade you otherwise.
Ambition
24Hours operates a sales process-driven business model and employs innovation
- both strategically and tactically - to target niche markets, define and differentiate
its services, deliver real added value for clients and support premium pricing
and accelerated growth. This is aligned to a continuous ‘siege mentality’
to cost minimisation, maximising ROI (Return On Investment) and profitable growth.
Innovation
has been critical for securing competitive advantage at each stage in the sales
process at Ambition 24Hours. The strategy is based upon a thorough understanding
of clients’ purchasing needs and processes - including the plethora of health
sector regulations to be negotiated in Ambition 24Hours’ main business sectors
- as well as competitor disposition and activity. In order to innovate successfully,
Ambition 24Hours has sought to identify and continually re-invent a new and better
sales process to address the core buying issues for clients and then to differentiate
with commitment and conviction.
Innovation
starts at the market planning stage of the process for Ambition 24Hours, in the
development of a solution to meet the precisely defined needs of a highly targeted
niche market: initially in the temporary nursing/ carer sector and, from 2003,
also in the locum doctors and supply teacher/lecturer sectors. Innovation is central
to the essential process of business diversification, vertically and horizontally,
to utilise the core strengths of Ambition 24Hours in new markets.
Innovation
then continues through successive stages of the sales process - to identify, match
and fulfill each client’s needs more completely, in his or her mind, than
competitors.
Business
review meetings of the Directors – both planned and impromptu – are
held on almost a daily basis, to challenge assumptions about every aspect of the
business and markets, discuss new ideas and address opportunities and problems
that arise. This is the only way to ensure that Ambition 24Hours remains fully
responsive to opportunity, addressing the problems that inevitably arise day-to-day,
and always achieving success at a micro and macro management level.
In
the case of the initial, core business of Ambition 24Hours, the target market
has been the ‘spot’ healthcare sector – to meet the last-minute
demand for temporary nursing staff, often when other agencies were unable to fill
the vacancy. To resolve an otherwise intractable problem for a client: this delivers
real value and builds the brand and sustainable growth for the business.
There
are similar core issues in sales process that can be identified for every business,
in every market sector. ‘Price’ is not one of them – rather,
it is just one element in the ‘value equation’ of sales process.
The
power of the ’24-7’ service message was identified as paramount in
Ambition 24Hours’ niche market, where there is often a poor reputation for
speed of service support. The sales process was then built around delivering on
‘the promise’, with continuing investment in IT and HR systems and
training, specifically to maximise speed and quality of response. Each operation
in the process is ‘chunked down’, assessed and defined, so as to develop
‘experts’ in each specific function within the business: staff interview,
booking, complaints procedures, key account sales, field sales and other roles.
The
24-7 ‘promise’ therefore permeates all sales process activities at
Ambition 24Hours. It is a rationale that supports the positioning of the high
level of service and delivery that the prospect and client can expect from doing
business with the company.
Delivering
successfully on this ‘promise’ has enabled Ambition 24Hours to ensure
considerable added value for its clients, who cannot afford to be let down: any
shortfall in staffing for nursing shifts inevitably impacts on patient care. The
high level of quality required of the 8,000-plus company and nursing staff places
a massive demand on HR management. For this reason the company continues to be
uncompromising in the standards maintained for the screening, recruitment and
training of staff. It is a formidable logistical and HR issue: but one that offers,
through its resolution, major competitive advantage for the business.
Innovation
is essential in order to continue to grow the business exponentially in today’s
markets. If a business fails to innovate, it is increasingly difficult for clients
to distinguish between its solution and a competitor’s.
This
is particularly the case when, through the internet, globalisation and other developments,
client prospects have a faster, more comprehensive understanding of the services
that are available than previously. Businesses cannot rely on client ignorance
of alternative services – or transitory advantages afforded by superior
e-technology alone - in order to maintain market dominance.
Ambition
24Hours already has a series of new service innovations in hand for 2003. Major
change occurs on a monthly basis. As one innovation is launched, a second is being
finalised and a third is in preparation. The sales process for each service is
subject to regular and intensive scrutiny, appraisal, redesign and change.
Yet
the company is risk-averse. All innovation is based on a thorough understanding
of the market dynamics and its purchasing processes. The overall objectives and
strategic orientations remain unchanged for Ambition 24Hours, and the ROI on every
activity is the paramount issue.
Each stage
of the sales process is assessed so as to seek new opportunities to innovate.
Strategically these are:-
