Hi I am Ricky Nicol, Chief Executive and Founder of Commsworld a Scottish based telecommunications organisation with offices in Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow a company I am very proud of and one that I believe is going places.
 

Four months ago ( February 2010) I wrote my first blog; ‘’Four Years on, what’s changed’’ where I looked at changes in 1 my health and 2 technologies and in particular what impact Social Media has had over that 4 year period and how it would impact our business as well as personal lives going forward.

First of all I had my last 4 year cancer check up earlier this month and pleased to say things are spot on, I am now into my 5th year since treatment stopped which is good news.
Secondly the impact Social Media, Twitter and Linked-in in particular, has had on me personally and on my business in general since February has been remarkable.

The last four months has seen a huge uptake of social media engagement within the business, far greater rate than we experienced in the previous 4 years, and far greater than I would have thought possible 4 months ago. This has had a tremendously positive impact on Commsworld as a business and also me and my colleagues who have embraced this with open arms. It is fair to say that embracing Social Media has brought tangible benefits to the business both commercially and possibly even more important, building relationships and trust.

I find we are ‘’collaborating and engaging’’ with new people and existing clients sharing ideas, contacts, opportunities, news and building strong relationships with organisations and individuals that before would at best have been very difficult if not by near impossible. We are engaging with clients, individuals and companies we didn’t previously know and exchanging ideas, questions and answers. The old advert ‘’it’s good to talk’’ may well still be true well it is also ‘’good to Twitter’’ in the modern always on world where instant information and answers are right at your finger tips, just ask the question.

Now again all of us in business have quickly came to the conclusion that nothing can be relied on, we have seen Snow cause havoc and mayhem, Volcanic Ash ‘’close down world travel’’ and who knows what we will be hit with next, anyone like to have a guess?

However in an IP world we have the ability to trade and deliver good service to our clients, irrelevant to what disaster the world throws at us and it is irrelevant what size your organisation is.


In fact one of my fellow Directors, Andy Arkle, was stuck in Portugal (not a bad place to be stuck I hear you say) because of the Volcanic Ash scenario, not a problem to Andy who worked for a small telecoms company, ie Commsworld, in Scotland. Andy quickly communicated via Twitter and e mail all his direct dial calls that switched on when he was meant to return to the office, twinned to his mobile phone and clients, colleagues and suppliers communicated with Andy as they normally would.

Now Andy happened to be on holiday with two friends who work with large banks, now you would have thought these financial giants (I use the term loosely after 2008 crash) would also take this in their stride….eh no! They were literally stuck, no communications, no business as normal panic all around who could pick up for them back at base. It would appear the banks ‘’have a security issue’’ regarding this type of ‘’online communications’’ the same banks that encourage us to bank online.

Now I have noticed that our business has grown, into the largest independent telecom company in Scotland, through networking and building strong relationships with clients helping and supporting them, not simply selling them things (people can buy things from anybody). People will buy ‘’things’’ when they need them however they would like to buy these things from people they trust and respect and who help them over and above delivering products. I believe we are now engaging with people and businesses on a different scale and not ‘’trying to sell things to them’’. We are openly offering support, advice and guidance in what is a technically evolving world in order to gain trust and respect from our clients and allow them to protect their business when the next ‘’Volcanic Cloud’’ hits us.

Follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/commsworld
Follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/rickynic

Ask us the questions and see if we have the answers and explore if we can help your company stay connected irrelevant to what hits you, we can if you want also sell you ‘’things’’.