Global Nomad report 2010-2011

December 27, 2011 by Bert Verbeeke

Office talk

1.    Foreword 

I am encouraged by reading this report. Looking back helps to see where Global Nomad as a business is going. It is great to hear that the staff of Global Nomad has taken their responsibilities and in that way make things work.

Obvious is that from 2010 onwards there were lots of successes and challenges. Screening through the milestones there is reason to be proud on the achievements. Reflecting on our core business it is clear there were lots of challenges. Those challenges need to be addressed to see Global Nomad prosper in the near future.

inancially I think Global Nomad is a healthy organization. It is good to see profit being made in 2010. After 2 years Global Nomad already became profitable what is a good reflection of the effort of the office staff.

This report is open and blunt. It reflects that Global Nomad is a dynamic business, seeking to expand and grow. It might on some places be critical – but its intension is growth and forward looking.

I am thankful to work with the Global Nomad staff and look forward to do so for long.

Bert Verbeeke
Global Nomad – Managing Director
October 19, 2011.

2.    Introduction

Global Nomad is a foreign owned wholly enterprise located on the Qinghai Tibetan plateau in China. Our scope of business is Web Enabled Services where we assist companies from all over the world with their website or internet related products. GlobalNomad

This report evaluates from January 2010 till September 2011. In order to do valid reporting, we will use the Vision and Mission statements as a reference.

Besides looking back on how the mission is implemented, we will also share a little on General Business items. A specific section contains explanation on the financial report. A complete financial report is written by our accountant and can be received is wanted.

Reporting has only benefit if something is done with the report. This report therefore also analyses and reflects on some weak areas in the Global Nomad organization. Thus it is more than a report but also a tool for change in the future.

3.Vision and Mission – implementation

The vision and mission statements were written in 2009 and are still leading in business decisions that are made. You find them in the sidebar on the right. Global Nomad

As those statements are broad and need interpretation we will use the strategy plan 2010-2014 to evaluate.  This plan addresses three main areas

• Corebusiness
   Everything to do with developing websites

• Sale s and Marketing
   Everything to do access to our domestic and international market

• Human Resources
   Everything to do with internal operation of business

CORE BUSINESS

Global Nomad’s core business is in so called ‘Web Enabled Services’. This covers everything that can be outsourced and worked on over the Internet. Like fixing existing websites, developing digital graphics, hosting and providing email service for customers from all over the world,  are some of the basic services belonging to the scope of work of Global Nomad.

In our core business we have two segments: products and services besides customer relationship. If those segments are operating well we will succeed in our business.

PRODUCTS & SERVICES

Even though Global Nomad is situated on the Qinghai Tibetan plateau we serve customers from The Netherlands, Australia, United States of America, Germany, Kirzychie, Canada and more. 

In the reporting period we have offered the following to our customers:

• Complete Web design - from scratch (idea) till finished product (website)

• Web programming - conversion of a image into a webpage
  

• Support existing website - fixing existing websites

The products and services that Global Nomad offers are not unique and outsourcing in web development is a very competitive world. Important is to have products and services that are up to date with the current trends in web design. As web design is a fashion – it changes rapidly – the need for high skilled personnel is explicit.

In order to keep up with the current trends and development we have assigned a new position in the office structure so called ‘technology adviser’. The role of this person is to enable the office staff to be relevant in their business.

Customer relationship

Our mission states that Global Nomad is a customer driven business. Because we do so, we have to get feedback from our customers what they think of jobs performed by Global Nomad staff. Therefore we launched our customer evaluation tool. By knowing customers opinion about the quality of work, we are able to increase our proficiency level and so attract more business.

Customers that had contact with one of our staff are send a link by email. The link when will redirect them to our website and launch a form. On this form some basic questions are asked and customer can rate professionalism of Global Nomad.

Below you find a summary of the feedback given by customers:

Areas that customers are satisfied with

In general customers are happy with the work provided by Global Nomad and we do what we promise.

Areas for improvement

A weak entry in Global Nomad is planning and completion of work in time. A few customers do share that our services are slow. Even though initial we respond quickly, we implement slow.

Besides this customers reflect we need to work on our professionalism. This reflects in poor quality mostly of content related material.

Reflection's on core business

Global Nomad is doing great in selling products and services internationally. It is a challenge to keep up to date with current trends and developments in web design world. Therefore the importance of the technology advisor will be huge and need not to be underestimated. Global Nomad

A marketing plan need to be written that contains an evaluation on the current products and services and compare it with current web design practice.

Global Nomad need to expand their services and should not only serve businesses that are in need for small websites. Also we need to get expertise in more CMS systems. Global Nomad

The customer evaluation tool is very important improvement on Global Nomad being customer driven organization. The feedback on timing and professionalism is not strange. A plan should be made to address the issues concerned.

SALES AND MARKETING

Second listed in our strategy is marketing and sales. Entering the offshore market is a common challenge for outsource institutes.

Inbound Marketing

Since 2010 Global Nomad has been working on Inbound Marketing. This was initiated with the launch of the new Global Nomad website. Our website now had integrated social media. Every week Global Nomad aims to make changes and addition in the content of the website, relating to our products and services. This will be seen by search engines and thus the webpage will be ranked higher. Having a higher rank means to be found more easily by potential customers.

As the account manager need to write those articles it would be good to reflect how many hours will be used in order to gain one customer. For one customer the minimum time-need, including marketing activities will be 26 hours before the website is live. For bigger projects the maximum can be up to 66 hours.

Domestic sales

As reflected in the financial chapter on page 14, we serve mainly international customers. In order to make Global Nomad sustainable a sphere point is to enter the domestic market. In the east of China web site usage by business and personal use is a full-grown market. As for Qinghai this market is still in the early days.

Since Global Nomad is good in web development, we want to be leading business in Qinghai in this segmet. We have the skills, technology and cultural understanding of making websites that are attractive to Chinese and foreign audience.

Our strengths will be in the development of websites for those businesses that have to do something with the international market and want to cross cultures.

Marketing tools

Besides inbound marketing, Global Nomads has one other marketing tool: word of mouth advertisements. This has been the most fruitful tool and we need to continue make use of it. Our strategy in this is getting people interested in the unique of our business and when they are excited, they will spread the news.

Reflection's on sales and marketing

The need for an international Account Manager is obvious. Global Nomad has been searching for one for a long time. This job is now performed by the director who has many other jobs. After finding a candidate in 2010 it was not possible to provide the applicant with the job. We were not allowed to start the visa application process by the Qinghai labor bureau. This is a threat to Global Nomad expansion and need to be addressed. GN

A domestic account manager is on the agenda for Global Nomad. But due to the character of our business not everybody can do this. Selling websites is something different than selling shoes. Global Nomad should acknowledge this and find alternative ways of finding domestic sales

Human Resources

Continuity and sustainability are high on the agenda of Global Nomad. Our customers are more interested in a long term relationship with than a quick fix solution. To have continuity the kernel of Global Nomad are our staff.

Staff turnovers within IT businesses are in general higher than other professional segments. Global Nomad has experienced the same in the past years. We did some research to find out what former employees do.

Realizing that most employees came with almost no understanding of computers and how to do projects, it is great to see that quite a few currently have good jobs.

Current Employees

As of October 1st 2011 Global Nomad has the following employees with full time contract:

In order to become locally sustainable we are looking for a team of around 10 to 14 people. This includes sales and marketing people.

To expand in this way there is a huge need for trainers and professionals from oversees.

The need for engineers and trainers

Businesses that don’t change will die. All employees, foreign and local, at Global Nomad have a strong desire to grow and expand. In order to do so we have developed a new office structure. This can be seen in the paragraph on page

But fact is that in Qinghai province no engineers nor graphic designers can be found to work on the level that Global Nomad has. Also knowing the fact that Web Development is fashion and thus changing very quick the need for foreign expertise is clear.

Global Nomad will go and network with oversees universities to receive more students that need to do their practice. In the mean time, as written above, we will also try to find possibilities to add an foreign lead web developer to the team.

Reflection on human resources

The turnover of personnel in Global Nomad is not very high compared with other business.  There are quite a few vacancies (listed on page 13) as for foreigners and local employees. Global Nomad need to make a plan to recruit. 

To hire foreign staff Global Nomad need to find out what need to be done in order to be able to do so. Simply a ‘no’ and not even be able to start the application process without reason is also in the current China not acceptable.

4.General business Progress

In this chapter we will reflect some more on the general development of Global Nomad as a business, our business plan and expansions in the near future.

Changes in Office Structure

In order to be more localized (our vision and mission statement want Global Nomad to be a local managed business) we have developed a new structure. It is attached on page 12 .

Another change in the new structure is on operation level only local staff activities. Expect the Internation Account Manager role and international sales and marketing function.

First SAAS platform launched

Another exciting happening is the launch of the first SAAS application for Qinghai customers. Global Nomad start developing a place where hotels in Qinghai can have their own website, without them inventing the wheel again. (see qinghai-hotels.com)

The domain qinghai-hotels.com is registered and in the start phase hotels can sign up for this service for about 50 RMB every 6 month. Global Nomad provides them a service where they can publish more information about their hotel.

As the server is maintained and used by many other similar businesses, the customer of this SAAS service is thus ensured with continuity of a web presence.

Future Plans

One of the expansions Global Nomad sees is the huge need for professional computer services in the rural areas of Qinghai. Thus we have developed a plan to setup our first computer store in Zeku. Global Nomad

But before we can actually start this expansion, we first need to allocate funds, change the business scope of Global Nomad and find personall to keep the shop. Start professional hardware services in remote areas on the Qinghai Tibetan plateau.

Another thing that Global Nomad will do in 2011 and 2012 is more present on international fairs. The uniqueness of Global Nomad in the international community is very clear. As we want to have a greener Qinghai, IT services from Global Nomad will really speak and promote foreign businesses to come to establish in Qinghai as well.

Vacancies

In order to make this all happening, we need to expand in personell. According to the new structure and the plans above, we see the vancaies below. Its up to the director together with the operational manager will make a plan to recruit.

Needed Foreign Staff:                     

-     Director  

-     General Manager   

-     rnational Sales manager  

        Needed Local Chinese staff:

-      Lead Web Developer

-     phic Designer

-     Two Web Engineers / Coder

-     System engineer

MILESTONES 2010 – 2011