UK small businesses are failing to set sufficient briefs for IT projects, research finds.

According to a survey of 200 IT professionals, two thirds of IT projects fail because the brief changes after the project has begun. Furthermore, two thirds of respondents say they have been involved in IT projects which have not been as successful as they could have been.

Despite IT budgets continuing to be constrained, meaning that when IT projects are given the go-ahead it is even more imperative that they are made a success, still many are failing to set a sufficient brief to avoid failure.

Statistics from the British Computer Society show that between 1998 and 2005 across the European Union only one in eight IT projects were considered successful. The rest were cancelled, suffered significant cost or time overruns.

Thomas Coles, managing director of MSM Software says, ‘Software projects are resource intensive and complex, and have a reputation for being both expensive and risky. This reputation is all too often validated by an abundance of projects failing. Yet, the failure of an IT project due to a changing brief is completely avoidable.’

Coles believes that the success rate of IT projects would be significantly increased if businesses and suppliers worked more closely, and transparently, at the discovery phase of a project.

‘By doing this, long-term business processes can be established and technology designed specifically to support the individual business requirements. Collaborative working in this way is fundamental as the success or failure of a software project can also determine the future (or failure) of a business,’ he adds.

Latest News | small business news and advice

(PRWEB UK) 30 January 2012

SEO Positive is expanding once again as the company welcomes a brand new sales manager to its business development division today.

The SEO agency, which is based in Essex, would like to welcome Paul Taylor to the team. Paul has extensive experience within this particular area and is looking forward to bringing his knowledge and skills to a sales department that has grown from strength to strength in recent times.

As expected, SEO Positive has had yet another month of record sales, which has been helped by the recent managerial restructuring within the firm. Staff are now able to work more efficiently thanks to minor tweaks to the existing sales processes.

Ben Austin, the Managing Director at the company, is excited for the expansion and believes that adding to his strong sales department will lead to unprecedented success in the coming months.

We believe were ready for rapid growth, Ben announces. Our business is achieving new great things because were constantly adapting to the industry its second nature for us to adjust our services to suit demand and we believe our sales team really communicate this commitment to new clients.

Since the launch of the companys re-designed corporate website in early January, SEO Positive has been pushing an aggressive in-house marketing campaign to promote its new range of services, which include cutting edge web usability and SEO copywriting packages alongside more advanced SEO options.

SEO Positive was established in 2007 in Chelmsford, Essex with the aim of bringing effective yet affordable online marketing services to companies from all industries and backgrounds. The company offers a huge range of services including search engine optimisation, Pay Per Click management, social media marketing and online reputation control.

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More Search Engine Optimisation Press Releases

The Forum of Private Business has teamed up with its member Frank Taylor and Associates, the leading agency for dental professionals, to survey UK dentists in order to discover their future plans and barriers to growth.

fpb.org – Latest news articles from the FPB

With news on falling business confidence, it’s easy to assume that growth isn’t possible in the age of austerity. Wrong. Last year more than 500,000 people started their own business. Some of the largest and most profitable companies in the world are recession start-ups – having taken advantage of a time when many organisations were cutting back to look at things differently and invest in their people.

Often the size and sector of business isn’t the factor that holds it back. More often that not, it’s a case of changing the attitude and approach. Just look at Apple, which turned its fortunes around in the midst of the dot.com boom. Whatever your business, it is possible to buck the trend and take control in 2012. By starting the year with the right approach to sales and by implementing the best techniques, the opportunities to win business are endless.

Here are some tips for winning new business in 2012:

• Putting together a prospecting plan. It’s imperative to get the foundation right, to define the sales focus and agree best practice – as well as breaking the large annual sales down into manageable bite sized pieces. Gear the plan towards getting in front of your ideal prospect – it’s a lot easier to go out to find clients when you know exactly what you’re looking for.

• Learn from lessons. Debriefing is imperative, whether a sale goes well or not. If it goes well, analyse why so that lessons can be implemented across the board. If it doesn’t go well, identify what could have done better so that you can practice it thoroughly.

• The ‘people element’. If you sound, smell, look and act like every other salesperson your prospect has ever seen, this is how you will be treated. So from the beginning, it’s imperative you personalise the whole experience. Focus every meeting on listening to them and their problems. Talking about you and the feature benefits of your product is a one-way track to protracted sales, stalling and objections and ultimately, failure. The number of sales you make is proportional to the amount of information you gather, not the information you give.

• Be picky. Unfortunately some people cannot be pleased – and to boot they can take up huge amounts of your time and resources and then pay you very little in return. Sometimes, it pays to be discerning. In the business world, there will always be time wasters; the trick is to spot them early and not let them waste your most valuable resource – your time.

• Relax and enjoy. The sales meeting or the sales calls do not have to be a gritty, hard-won, exhausting experience. You may need to be gutsy for a few seconds at a time, but learn to relax and bring some humour into things. If you enjoy what you are doing, it comes across in your speech, body language and your whole persona.

Believe in your business and your product. We are all human at the end of the day and the whole process is infinitely more enjoyable when the buyer and the seller treat each other with equal business stature. The best sales strategy has a screening process whereby the fit between your prospect’s needs and your solution is a ‘win win’ for both parties.

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