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About
Harold Forbes
Born and brought up in a small family business in Scotland that
continues trading today, much of my career was spent climbing the
ranks of a multinational drinks company, Guinness/United Distillers
(now Diageo). Several years were spent at corporate headquarters
measuring and researching markets and developing business and brand
strategies. Keen to get more practical experience, I transferred to
a marketing role and was later invited to go to Chile as Marketing
Director for the Andean Region. Since returning to London in 1998 I
have worked with a number of organisations, such as Regus, The Open
University, UDEX and Food from Britain, to initiate and implement
strategic change in their business.
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Early in my career I realised that marketing was not something that
was done by a company but what a company does. The job of management
is to be clear about the purpose of the company – that is, what is
the value the company is delivering to its customers - then arrange
the resources and motivate the staff towards fulfilling it.
Forbes SRP helps small and mid-sized companies to do just that.
During my career I have developed a passion for understanding people
and how they come together to make a good business. I have also
delivered tangible business results. Some highlights are
Establishing a new sales & marketing representative office of 28
staff and working as marketing director in it for 3 years,
during which time profits doubled.
Re-designing the customer retail experiences in a chain of 8
stores, bringing about a 30% increase in average spend per
customer.
Developing and applying a system to manage marketing investment
in a portfolio of brands leading to gaining brand leadership in
one market, which was growing at 20% per annum, and
consolidating leadership in 4 others.
Taking an existing idea for sales promotion and redesigning it
so that investment requirements were cut from circa £65 per head
to £6.50 per head.
Writing a beginners’ guide to exporting for small and medium
sized businesses.
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The logo
The logo was developed by Phil Fox of
1st Class Software
from this painting called “El gato en la jardin” by Chilean artist
Nora Schkolnik and was acquired at an exhibition in Santiago in 1995.
You can learn more about Nora (and practise your Spanish) at
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The picture is a good representation of what Forbes SRP
is about. The background is the business environment, which you can
choose to see as a garden or a jungle. How you chose to see it will dictate a
lot of what you subsequently do. The cat represents strategy.
Intelligent, appealing to many but not all, fast, agile and capable
of being aggressive. Most importantly, it dominates the picture. The
bird is research. Imbedded in the strategy but with the ability to
rise up and see what is going on round about. The bird also needs to
keep itself slightly apart to avoid being killed by the cat.
The two fish represent planning. Salmon are born in fresh water
rivers but will grow and spend much of their adult life at sea,
returning to their birth spot to spawn their own young. How they do
it is a mystery, but it is a beautiful example of natural planning.
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