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My Day: School run, tweet, coffee, tweet, some work, tweet, Nancy’s jabs, tweet, more work, tweet, read with Alfie, tweet, gym, tweet, bed.0
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This tweet probably sums up a day in the life of me at the moment, Mum of 2 firstly and foremost, but also the Marketing Support at Fretwell-Downing Hospitality ( @fdhospitality ). I have a 5 year old crazy energetic (slightly mental – probably my doing) little boy, and a new 12 week old chilled out little lady (also gets it from me – surely?). FDH are great and rather than me having all my maternity leave they’ve instead allowed me to work from home until after xmas, giving me chance to spend time with my babies whilst not losing touch with what’s going on in the world of work! Its going well, I’m up at 6 working away before the kids are even up, and then again once they’re in bed – its hard work but as they say someone’s got to do it! And I love it – never have liked an easy life!
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My life in 1 picture! #tutu #footykit0
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So my background then, where to start? Well I like to claim to be the baby of the team, and therefore this should be fairly short but I’m creeping up towards 30 now, so its probably going to end up a little longer than I would have liked!
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The Blue Room, 2000, my first proper job, and I was a waitress. I LOVED IT! Well the main reason were the tips – jeez I’d never experienced anything like it! You mean if I smile, bring out your meals, be polite and ensure you enjoy your evening, you’ll actually give me extra money for that? That was my kinda job! All that came easy, I’d never been shy, and had been brought up to be polite, so as far as I was concerned people were leaving tips, because I was just doing what my mum had always told me too! Also there was the social side of it, and I made some great friends and had some brilliant (drunken) nights after a shift had finished, we used to love to go for a curry when we’d done, even if it was 1am. And then there was the FOOD, one of my favourite things, get on with the chefs and they’ll look after you well – ‘Jade do you want to try this new desert?’ – erm do I?! And so there was my first taste of the hospitality industry and I liked it!
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#waitress #ecards0
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So I went on to work in a couple more pubs and restaurants and it was mainly because I found it an easy way to earn money, often working in the evenings alongside a FT job, it was like being paid to enjoy yourself. Working in a pub especially – I used to look forward to going to work, enjoying talking to the customers and having a giggle with the people I worked with, it was like a night out in itself!
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For many years I worked in for a very well known bookmaker, in the call centre, I started as a telephonist which again I found quite easy, because good service came naturally, its just being polite right? I then moved on to work in the Resource Planning department, and this is where the geeky mathematician in me could really shine – oh dear did I really just admit to my love of maths? I was responsible for scheduling the shifts of the telephonists, to fit with a forecast that was calculated taking all different factors into account, sporting events, day, time, pay day (yes we really had to plan for sickies being thrown on pay day!) and I could go on. I enjoyed it and I worked there for 8 years, where my knowledge of horse racing and football more than trebled – my Grandad would be so proud that I know what a Lucky15 is…(15 bets, 4 selections, 4 singles, 6 doubles, 4 trebles & 1 fourfold – just in case you were wondering)
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And then I was made redundant, so with Alfie getting to school age, I decided that until then I would work for myself doing nails – something I’d always enjoyed doing, and working for myself seemed perfect at that time to fit with my situation….until, that is, I heard about the position at FDH – Senior Administrator & Marketing Support. It was going back to working full time but it was a position that sounded right up my street and so I went for it and here I am….A Senior Administrator and Marketing Support – although the administrator bit has been left in the good hands of Carrie while I’m working from home.
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It was a quick learning curve, about catering software and wham I was in, responsible for getting the (sorry to say) out of date website, all shiny and new, getting FDH all ‘social media’d’ up along with lots of other new marketing ideas that myself Andrew & Scott have managed to get up and running.
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So all in all I’ve had a few years in the hospitality industry, but my best experience probably comes from my love of all things food and wine!
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1 year to go celebrations! x0
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Monthly Archives for September 2012
Who are FDH?
Fretwell-Downing Hospitality have been providing Management Software to the Catering & Hospitality industry for over 20 years. Our team here have over 100 years of combined experience in this industry, and our blog is a way of sharing those expertise with you.
On here will be the views of our team – everything from the goings on in the Catering world, to how you can improve the running of your business.
To find out more about what we do as a company and our products you can visit our website here www.fdhospitality.com
Dispatches – The School Food Scandal
Software as a Service
There has been a significant change in the deployment of technology in recent years, and this is set to continue in the years ahead.
With the development of the internet, but more importantly the infrastructure to support it, if an application is now not fully web enabled then it is not in the game. The times of locally deployed systems are behind us, and with ADSL broadband (or higher) connectivity rates installed as standard the crunching and squeaking of modem connections or “thin client” imitations are gone. Central data access is taken for granted, and now it is not if we can get connected, but how and by which most efficient means.
This technological advance has also dramatically changed the way we do business in the software industry. Software products are more commonly deployed as a service, with rented or phased payment plans alleviating the need for high initial capital expenditure. We are also seeing changes in what we buy and how we use this technology.
In the past we purchased “modules” or functionality if we thought we required it, licensed it but often never used all these business tools. How often have we heard “we are not getting the full use out of our system”.
In these changing times we now only need to purchase or rent the system functionality required, for the parts of our business where we need it, and readily switch it on or off as our business demands dictate, sometimes for limited periods of time.
Licenses are becoming transferable, so system use and payments reflect what is happening within the business and system charges flex accordingly.
So what is the catch?
Rentals and Software as Service are good for the purchaser and give the supplier some security from the recurring revenues, but it is not all good news.
Delayed revenues from upfront investments restrict innovation, development and new entry to market for new providers or product offerings. This purchase model does imply lengthier payback periods for development investments, with protracted growth curves which with the need to regularly update technology product could mean little return from the development investment. This implies that the funding models of software development must change, or there is a significant reduction (or spread) in the initial investments.
Those mature companies which have already provided for the investment and which have successfully transferred the bridge between capital to rental or SAAS models are much better positioned to respond to this changing need and should be around to see the investments through.
My opinion – ensure that the company you purchase from has covered its investment costs (or can clearly demonstrate it can) and that it will be around to honour your rental and ongoing business needs for the years ahead.
FDHospitality 
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