View from the TopIt’s been sometime since we published CTi, however there is a lothappening around CT and especially in London hence the decision topublish a newsletter.

Much of this edition is concentrated on the changes we are making in Londonover the coming months, however London is only part of the story, we havemajor developments in every part of the CT business.

We have just completed the accounts for the first half of our financial year. I ampleased to say that the overall picture is ahead of our targets and substantiallyahead of the same period in previous years. We had a strong start to theFinancial year in the UK and we have have managed to retain that benefitthrough generally better trading across most regions in the first three months ofthis calendar year including a great result in Barcelona largely due to theHuawei Gala Dinner in February, this involved input from Germany, the UK andof course Spain.

The summer is traditionally our strongest period and 2016 looks to be noexception with most of our traditional events confirmed and several majorprojects at the Olympics in Rio hopefully putting the icing on this year’s Cake.

Winning the business is the first stage and our sales teams continue to do afantastic job, the baton now passes to Project Management and Operations todeliver on all these projects and to maintain our margins. This is an everincreasing challenge in today’s world of, falling prices and intense competition.

Keeping our costs under control is as important as pricing. We are a largeorganisation with almost 300 people across Europe. Our salary cost alone isaround £1 million per month. The staff review we carried out in London andelsewhere, over the last year has been difficult but has resulted in savings ofaround 10% on our staff cost.

We have also welcomed a number of new customer facing people, who arealready making a significant impact on our Sales activities and revenues.

All of our regional offices have good news stories and are winning strategicallyimportant business. We see much of this posted on Yammer every day, pleasekeep this up it’s a great forum to keep everyone updated on what’s happeningaround our regions.

We have built our business and reputation by employing the best and mostinnovative people who then deploy the best technology to exceed our clientsexpectations . Going forward we need to become much better at sharing themessage about these fantastic resources, it really is what differentiates us fromthe rest. n

CT News May 2016

ASIA PACIFICEUROPE

MIDDLE EASTNORTH AMERICA

the best and mostinnovative people

who then deploy the

best technologyto EXCEED our clients

expectations

Inside

View from the Top

The New Building

Putting the Audioback in AV

Our People

Phase 1 is/was to vacate Brunel Way and allowPresteigne to carry out a modest refit prior to moving in.This has been completed and Dimension have atemporary office space in Manor Gate and are nowsetting up their permanent warehouse area.This has now been completed which also allows LED tostart using some of the additional warehouse space.Having gained full access to the building we are nowfinalising the future layout and agreeing what work needsto be done prior to occupation.Phase 2 will take place during May, June and July andwill include opening up the wall between our existingLED space and the new warehouse, moving officepartitioning and refit of some areas such as crew rooms,kitchens and toilets. We will then install/re-work the IT, telephones and securityinfrastructure before the building is ready to occupy fully.We have the luxury of being able to do this work in ourown time as we are not under pressure to vacate ourexisting space. We are also trying to undertake the work

at our busiest time and avoiding unnecessary cost.Realistically this phase is expected to take around three months.Phase 3 is the physical move of people to the newbuilding. It is therefore unlikely to start until later in thesummer and will be timed (where possible) to avoidabsolute peaks in work load etc. The final layout is still work in progress however it is now confirmed that Management, Sales, ProjectManagement, Operations and Accounts will all bemoving to the new building.We will operate a number of hot desks in both locations,this will allow more flexibility in where people work andmean that we do not have dedicated desks for thosestaff who spend a high proportion of their time away fromthe office.Phase 4 will be the gradual re-modelling of our E2 buildingonce the move to Manor Gate has been completed. Thereare a number of exciting ideas in the pipeline and we willprovide more information as the plans develop. n

The New BuildingWe have recently started a programme to re-organise the allocation of space in Crawley across thethree buildings occupied by Avesco. Ultimately this will result in a more efficient use of the space andput all of CT’s customer facing people back together in one location.By moving Presteigne into Brunel Centre (the building previously occupied by Dimension) we allowCT to occupy the whole of Manor Gate without increasing the overall UK site costs for the Avescogroup.The move will also provide much needed space for our LED, Video, Media and Integrated Networksteams to expand their technical workspaces and develop better customer workshop anddemonstration facilities.So what are the plans and how will it affect you?

Everywhere in the world that we operate CT is seen as an AV specialist, all of our services areprovided under the “CT” brand and the UK should be no different. Elsewhere, our larger locationshave highly specialist and dedicated audio teams, supported by the best equipment and projectmanagement service. In the UK for historical reasons we have been different. Dimension was established 25 years agoas a separate brand. Whilst it has always been part of Avesco, and for the last 12 years part of CT,it has always been seen as a separate business.It is clear our world, especially the corporate sector, is moving towards full service delivery and mostof our newer clients (along with many of our old friends) have clearly indicated there is confusionand subsequent missed opportunity that arises from the two apparently separate businesses. Internally and especially outside the UK we want people to think of us as one CT offering a broadportfolio of specialist services that includes video, audio, networking, communications, media and(where appropriate) lighting, rigging and scenic.Ultimately we intend to operate under one brand, however we believe this transition needs to takeplace over a period of time, allowing some of our key audio customers to adjust.As the first stage in this process, today we launch a new logo for Dimension in the UK with theheadline

“May the 4th be with you…..Creating the new Dimension”

The Dimension website www.dimension.co.uk has been refreshed and a press release is available here. With the new logo, no one can miss the clear association between CT and Dimension however weretain the individuality and a degree of separation for those clients who prefer to see us as separateand individual operations.The Audio team have already moved into Manor Gate, the building that will become CT’s newheadquarters. In the coming months we will be moving a number of departments to the new building. We need to change the way we think and talk to our customers, creating a more joined upapproach and ensuring that everyone is aware that we can and do provide a full range oftechnologies and services, all supported by the very best technical innovators and operational staff.In June we will be exhibiting at the ABTT show in London which provides an ideal platform tocommunicate the changes to the UK market and theatre world whilst introducing our newlydeveloped network and communication services. n

Putting the Audio back in AV

Our PeopleOur people are at the heart of everything we do, in recent months we have sadly said goodbye to a number ofpeople from CT many of whom had been with us a long time.We have also welcomed several new faces, almost all of whom are customer facing and will help us developbroader relationships and additional revenues.

Dieter E. Gross (pictured left) has been appointed as BusinessDevelopment Director and will take on the responsibility forbusiness development and sales for CT’s German operation.Michael Grabinski (pictured right) has been appointed as NewBusiness Development Manager for and will take responsibilityfor CT’s new office in Berlin-Brandenburg.Both men have had many successful years and experience inthe media industry, most recently at media event solutionprovider Gahrens+ Battermann in Berlin.

Albert Deltour was appointed Commercial Director inHolland earlier last year and has become increasinglyresponsible for business development across theHolland and German operations. His career has included senior roles at De HallenStudios in Amsterdam, Backbone International,Natura Artis Magistra in Amsterdam and as founderand owner of the Amsterdam Convention Factory and the events communications agency; Deltour & Waerts.

Chris Ellis joined CT’s London team as ProjectManager last month. With almost ten years in the industry and previously at PRG/XL and Blitz Communications, Chris brings with him a wealth of corporate business experience. Chris joins London’s sales and project managementteam concentrating on developing and increasingCT’s market share in the corporate area of thebusiness.

Our new Integrated Networks team have grown over the past few months. We would like to welcome Joe Hicks (ex ofImagination) Sam Mannis (previously a freelancer who worked for CT on the Rugby World Cup) and James Botting(originally from Avesco IT projects) to Sid Lobb’s team. Integrated Networks have just completed a series of demonstrations to the London operations with streamed demonstrationsto sales divisions throughout mainland Europe. We will be capitalising on this demonstration streaming at the IntegratedNetworks formal launch which will be happening in the next few weeks. n

INTEGRATEDNETWORKS

Joe HicksSam MannisJames Botting

Nick Askew joined London’steam as Account and ProjectManager last month.Working closely with Matt Eve,Mick Jones and Dan Burgess,as well as the rest of London’sProject Management team, Nick will be focussing ondeveloping new business within the corporate field.