(1888PressRelease)
February 18, 2009 - In a recent podcast interview for Management Issues (http://www.management-issues.com/2009/2/12/podcast/the-working-week-88.asp), Power, founder of the UK’s first business social network Ecademy (www.ecademy.com), explained how she used her network to grow and expand her business without incurring high running costs.
“When we started Ecademy, we weren’t able to attract venture capitalist investment and so we had no option but to build the business organically by ourselves, which involved a lot of time, effort and personal money and we even lost our house at one point. But it was a blessing in disguise really as it helped us find out we could leverage what was happening around us in terms of the social media world to enable us to be an adaptable business in a very low cost way”, explains Power.
Penny founded Ecademy in 1998 and believes that is a great example to many business owners of how to succeed in 21st Century business. Despite having millions of users across the globe, it has no physical offices and just five members of staff on the payroll. Penny claims that their success has been fuelled by the ability to tap into the expertise they needed by employing contractors for non-core functions and their understanding of 21st Century business models.
Power urges business owners to start looking at outsourcing more of their non-core functions to help reduce crippling running costs during difficult trading times, but says be careful to ensure that you engage the right suppliers, who really add value to the business and aren’t a drain on critical resources.
“The problem with a traditional supplier model is that in order to be successful, everyone has to be pushing in the same direction and unfortunately, you often get suppliers who will do just enough to cut the invoice. But when you engage support from within a trusted network, those people care about their reputation and know the impact that doing a good job will have on getting future business.
Automatically, the game changes and suddenly you see your business propelling forward through the combined efforts of your contractor network. The learning point is there is a significant difference between a Networked Organisation and a Networked Community”, says Power.
“Ecademy is an example of a truly networked business. We feed a lot of people with the contacts we pass out but they have equally given us so much back in terms of the way they have helped our business to advance. We all feel we are pushing in the same direction, with the same shared intention. It’s a simple model that other business can use to help drive their business forward during this difficult period whilst keeping costs as a minimum”, says Power.
For press enquiries please contact Rebecca King on Rebecca ( @ ) mediajems dot co.uk or 01603 283506
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