John Hinde Group

5.3 Team

As mentioned earlier, the consulting firm Cyrona were employed to develop an approach that would deliver the strategy laid down by the John Hinde management team. Cyrona have since ceased to trade as a company but, importantly, the John Hinde team have maintained individual relationships with key members of the implementation team. This has proved invaluable to the further development of the service.

The internal team has been consistent from the start as well. It included:

Mr. Niall Howard – Managing Director
Niall joined John Hinde International Limited in November 1992 as Managing Director. He was previously Marketing Director of the Super Value~Centra Supermarket Chain within the Musgrave Group and is a former Marketing Director of the Year (awarded to him by the Institute of Marketing in Ireland).

Mr. Dermot Caffrey – Financial Director
Dermot is a Chartered Accountant and is responsible for all Financial, IT, administration and Human Resource functions of the Group and assisting in developing and implementing strategic plans. He also has qualifications in International Marketing and was formerly General Manager for Masstock in Oman.

Mr. Geoff Scargill – General Manager
Geoff currently heads a new company within the John Hinde Group, PostcardXpress, which specialises in the production of promotional and advertising B2B postcards marketed though their website as well as conventionally. He is a former General Manager of John Hinde’s US operation, John Hinde Curteich Inc.

Ms Lily Murray – Ecommerce Executive
Lily Murray joined PostcardXpress in October 2000 as Ecommerce and Marketing Executive. Her main responsibilities include the maintenance and updating of the PostcardXpress web site and the promotion of the PostcardXpress brand both online and offline through search engine optimisation, advertising and direct mail campaigns.

Ms Aisli Madden – Senior Graphic Designer
Aisli Madden is the senior designer for PostcardXpress and as such, her design skills are far from wasted. Clients receive “design house” skills at print design prices and she executes each task with skill, proficiency and style. In addition to PostcardXpress corporate identity design and postcard design, Aisli is also responsible for new product design, website design, and general graphic design with John Hinde. 5.4

5.4 Training

A significant investment in training took place to ensure that the team possessed the skills and knowledge to ensure the successful and efficient running of the PostcardXpress business.

Geoff, Lily and Grace MacSweeney (eCommerce Assistant) set themselves the following training objective:

• to gain an extensive understanding and knowledge of the commercial and business aspects of web site management and to be as self-sufficient as possible in these areas.

Aisli Madden, the Designer, had the following training objective:

• to gain the understanding and skill to design a web site as well as the ability to modify and enhance our existing site.

Cyrona worked with the team to develop an in-house training programme that included the following elements:

• HTML Coding
• Image Uploading
• Category Addition
• Production Addition
• Order Retrieval

Geoff, Lily and Grace enrolled in an EI sponsored Web Manager Programme. This included the following:

• Basic HTML
• Content Management
• Marketing
• E- Commerce/E-Business
• Security Issues

Aisli completed a Web Designer Programme, which included the following modules:

• Planning and Management
• Web Design (HTML)
• Dreamweaver
• Graphics
• Fireworks
• Flash
• Client Side Scripting
• Site Visibility, Functionability, Usability
• Search Engines