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Leadership and the importance of communicating the “Why”

When it comes to leadership, effective communication is a key component.

Leaders are faced with the daily challenge of ensuring that their team members are all “running in the same direction.” If an organization’s employees are not on the “same page” as the leader, things may begin to dive south, rather quickly. So, to help mitigate “miscommunication” in an organization, leaders must not only regularly communicate with their employees, but also communicate and ensure their employees understanding of the “why” when providing a given task.

To provide an example, let’s look at two leadership approaches below. The first leadership approach is missing the “why” and the second approach, providing and ensuring the employee understands the “why.”

In the following examples, place yourself in the employee role and determine which form of communication you’d most appreciate from leadership.

Because I’m a fitness guy, I’ll provide a couple of basic examples that relate to the industry that I’m in.

Below, the leader is playing the role of the personal training studio manager, and the employee, the role of the personal trainer.

Studio Manager # 1:

“Chris, let’s please clean up all of your weights and mats after each of your training sessions. Thank you.”

Studio Manager # 2:

“Chris, let’s please clean up all of your weights and mats after each of your training sessions. This is super key because we want to ensure that you provide your next client, as well as the other team members and clients working alongside you, a clean space to work within. A clean space will allow you and your client to transition more effectively between each exercise, providing a more productive workout. Does that make sense? Thank you so much, Chris!”

Now, looking at the above two approaches. It’s not that approach # 1 is disrespectful, approach # 2 is just a more effective form of communication.  Sure, there’s a time and place for quick and direct communication (as we see in example # 1), although in most cases, if the employee is explained the reasoning behind a given task, they’ll be much more willing to perform the given task regularly and effectively vs. completing a task out of fear or without an understanding as to why they’re performing a given task.

Providing the “why” when communicating tasks with employees is a much more effective form of communicating, which will lead to long-term, positive results.

For more on Brad and his Atlanta fitness studio, please visit KoloFit.com

Natalie Tenzer-Silva: Paving the way for Mozambique’s growing tourism industry

Meet Natalie Tenzer-Silva, the powerhouse behind Maputo’s esteemed Dana Tours brand. Over the past two-plus decades, Natalie and her team have played a leading role in revolutionising the Mozambican tourism industry by providing sun-seeking leisure and corporate travellers with custom holiday packages and services. These packages and services are expertly tweaked and tailored to suit each traveller’s individual requirements, requests and budget.

Surviving the pandemic

As is the case for all countries around the globe, Mozambique is currently undergoing a tourism overhaul in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, and Natalie is determined to embrace and accelerate the necessary changes through Dana Tours. She speaks openly about the massive toll that the pandemic took on her business and the greater tourism industry but explains how she believes positive growth will come from the hardships experienced in the long run.

“Our business came close to collapse but every day through the pandemic I went to the office to prove that I didn’t give up hope.  Working with a skeleton staff complement, I wanted to be there each day to support those who came to work,” Natalie says.

“The pandemic showed me how, as a team, we could think outside of the box, and adapt through an almost complete travel blackout period,” she adds.

Going forward, the focus worldwide is very much on re-thinking tourism and Natalie is of the view that travel suppliers should be turning their attention to figuring out how to provide travellers with experiences that locals might take for granted, as well as how to create new adventures within a destination’s unique environment.

Leadership and championing a team

Born in South Africa, Natalie immigrated to Mozambique in the early 1990s. Mingling with the locals, she quickly learned Portuguese and entered the tourism industry in 1994 where she immediately put her natural leadership skills to good use. Natalie managed a large travel agency, called Dana Agency, then founded what was to become Mozambique’s largest inbound tour operator, Dana Tours. She is a member of the Chamber of Commerce Tourism Committee.

Since opening Dana Tours in 2002, Natalie has invested 20 years into its transformation, leading her staff along the way to building experiences around the country’s essence and utilising her team’s unrivalled knowledge regarding its very best bits whether in the city, on safari or at the beach.

For Natalie, leadership is about championing a team as a whole, but also putting energy into developing and supporting each individual member of the team.

“Every single team member has their own personal and professional goals in terms of growth and improvement. I’m very serious about creating an environment where people feel safe to express their ideas, where they feel protected and appreciated.  It’s important to provide my employees with a sense of job security and to define parameters within which they can work together as a unit,” she explains.

As far as leadership is concerned, Natalie believes that a good leader has trust in their team. A good leader doesn’t simply dictate. Instead, they listen to their team members, encourage them to give their own outlook on the future of the business and gently guide them in the right direction when necessary.

“Each of my employees learns through experience when dealing with clients. I encourage my staff to give me their outlook on how we should handle certain situations, and most times I don’t need to correct anything!”

The post-pandemic travel landscape in Mozambique

In a post-pandemic landscape, there is only one constant, and this is the case regardless of the destination: travel is going to, and already does, look very different compared to how it looked in 2019. Natalie shares some insights:

“Post-COVID, we’ve seen a dramatic up-take in enquiries and a lot more “last-minute” bookings. After a long time spent confined to their homes and having their movement restricted, people are so eager to take those once-in-a-lifetime trips. While much of the interest is for 2023, we’ve seen a significantly higher number of bookings with a 3-week lead time in 2022.”

Natalie is hopeful that the increased interest in a beach or safari holiday in Mozambique will continue its upward trend, highlighting just how friendly and welcoming Mozambicans are when it comes to their international visitors.

“The locals are warm and welcoming, and proud to show travellers their beautiful culture, safari parks and beaches,” she says.

“There are many reasons travellers should be setting their sights on a trip to Mozambique in the near future, especially if a quiet and secluded escape is on the cards. After all, there are no mass tourism establishments, there’s an endless supply of wide, open spaces and countless once-in-a-lifetime experiences on offer.”

Inspired to embrace change

Inspired by her team and her industry’s resilience, Natalie tells of how she and her staff at Dana Tours are ready to embrace the inevitable changes over the course of the next few years.

“Resilience inspires me.  The fact that my staff, many with young families, could tighten their belts and ride this through is incredible.  They’re the reason I love my job and my role as a leader. Walking into the office and hearing laughter and music and bumping into colleagues in the corridors puts a smile on my face,” comments Natalie.

When asked what advice she would impart to a new leader, Natalie insists that success in a position of leadership revolves around fully investing in one’s team and its growth.

“Guide your team to work as a unit, invest in them and always strive to be honest and transparent in all dealings. You’re all working towards one goal – mutual trust is key,” she concludes.

The future is bright for tourism in Mozambique and there’s no doubt that Dana Tours will be paving the way for its development, keeping the traveller experience at the forefront of every booking and letting the team’s passion for the country and its marvellous beauty shine through in all of its offerings.

John Hanafin: Providing Bespoke Strategic Management Support Globally

A focused professional with an entrepreneurial drive and a commercial mindset, John Hanafin has nearly three decades of experience in the HNW Trust and Corporate Service Industry, with over 15 years spent in the Middle East, between the UAE, Qatar, and Bahrain. John is passionate about serving the needs of his clients across the planet and ensuring that they receive all the relevant, quality advice accompanied by a high level of service.

John is a financier, investor, deal maker, and founder of Huriya Private, an award-winning advisory service company working with a select number of families and individuals.

A veteran of the financial services industry, sports management, commercial and promotional media, residency, and citizenship planning, John has served as Executive and Non-Executive Director on several boards. He has also worked with multiple governments providing advice on structuring and implementing programs to boost corporate re-domiciliation and foreign direct investment. John is a Chartered member of the Securities Institute, a member of the International Tax Planning Association, the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners, the International Business Structuring Association, and an FA Registered Intermediary.

An Award Winning Advisory Service Company

Established in 2018, Huriya Private is an independent, award-winning, international private equity, immigration, multi-family office, and corporate structuring firm based in Dubai, UAE.

The word ‘Huriya’ means ‘Freedom’ in Arabic. Freedom of movement is a fundamental right preserved in the laws and constitutions of most countries. However, enough evidence shows this right is limited to the borders and visa restrictions of one’s country of citizenship or lawful residence. Huriya Private can help break down these restrictions by providing its clients the freedom to travel visa-free and expatriate their wealth in the most commercial, tax-efficient, and cost-effective way.

Huriya’s team includes accountants, lawyers, tax advisors, on and offshore structuring and formation specialists. Collectively, the firm’s team has several decades of international experience in its field, which helps them to have a deep understanding of the demands and requirements of Huriya’s clients.

With several offices spread across Qatar, Switzerland, Albania, and Cyprus, Huriya Private is massively experienced in advising the GCC’s wealthiest individuals, helping them to protect, manage and enhance their private wealth.

Providing a Holistic Set of Services

Throughout his 25 years of working with several high-net-worth individuals within trust management and Corporate services, John knows what makes a person successful. His personal experience in succeeding in several locations across the planet has helped him to understand what it needs to make an impactful global imprint, and residency and citizenship by investment is only the first step, among many.

So, John has structured his company to boast a holistic set of services that provide its investors with a full range of services and solutions that can allow them to become global citizens by replicating their success worldwide; increasing their wealth, protecting their assets, breaking down boundaries, hedging against political and economic turbulence, and obtaining true financial and political sovereignty.

John says, “At Huriya Private, we take the business of family offices to the next level, harmonizing it with RCBI to produce optimal solutions for our clients that address every need. Our experienced team of professionals comes with diverse backgrounds, specialties, and experiences, enabling us to provide a holistic approach to business, and our vast array of services reflects that structure.”

Currently, the organization provides several path-breaking services, including;

Corporate Structuring: The organization provides this knowledge to its investors by carefully planning their global corporate structure, using an innovative analytical approach to ensure the well-being of its clients’ interests. Huriya offers corporate structuring solutions that cover all the necessary criteria, including tax structuring, financial distributions, succession planning, risk mitigation, and more.

Corporate Banking Services: Huriya’s long-term relationships with various first-rate banks like Emirates NBD, Barclays, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, Credit Suisse, Citi, and HSBC help the firm provide unmatched banking services to its clients, who can take advantage of the firm’s network to conduct businesses and seamlessly move their finances throughout the planet.

Trust Incorporation and Management: Huriya offers a wide range of digital finance management solutions for corporations and individuals, enabling them to enhance their crypto portfolio, mainly by supplementing it with RCBI solutions matching their profiles and objectives.

Tax and Accounting Services: The firm also provides tax and accounting services by handling international tax compliance, auditing, and accounting operations to enable its clients to focus on their primary business activities and more significant matters.

Becoming Truly Global: RCBI is the core functionality of Huriya Private, as it is a getaway for a better life on a global scale. However, by supplementing RCBI with intricate corporate and wealth management services, Huriya allows its clients to fulfill their potential and make their mark in the international arena.

Giving it Back to the Global Community

“In recent years, I have focused more on giving back to the global community we are part of. This is part of the reason that Huriya Private Foundation was founded. The Foundation aims to positively impact the lives of the underprivileged children, women, and families we work with.”– States John.

Although recently launched, the Huriya Private Foundation has already succeeded in leading several philanthropic initiatives by partnering with several other humanitarian organizations. It has joined the growing ranks of the global wealth management industry, acknowledging the importance of promoting the highest standards of ethical and sustainable behaviors. Huriya Private Foundation was also awarded the “Best Philanthropy InitiativeMENA’ at the Inaugural WealthBriefing Wealth for Good Awards, 2022.

Picture of the Future

Huriya strives to offer its clients an extremely high level of service by ensuring and recruiting the top specialists in its field. With its team of highly reputable advisors qualified in tax, law, and accountancy, the firm aims to provide security and support to our clients while providing transparency and a high level of service.

Marwa Kaabour: Redefining Leadership

Meet Marwa Kaabour, the Group Head of Marketing and Corporate Communication of Al Masaood LLC, one of the most prominent family-owned business conglomerates in Abu Dhabi, which formed concurrently with the UAE’s union back in 1971. The group provides comprehensive solutions to its customers across 18 different industry sectors through its diverse activities and divisions. As an organization, Al Masaood has always aimed to serve and support the growth and development of the UAE, specifically in Abu Dhabi.

Being Abu Dhabi’s largest family business, the Al Masaood Group has pioneered the fields of automotive, transport, power, and industrial, constantly growing and developing the country for more than five decades. The group’s flagship company Al Masaood Automobiles is a leader in Abu Dhabi’s automotive market. Its Power Division has long been supporting the power, marine and renewables industry in Abu Dhabi. From the very early days of importing the first gas turbine and constructing the first water desalination plant, the group has always supported Abu Dhabi’s economic development.

The Steadfast Leader

Marwa has been a part of the marketing and communication industry for nearly three decades in the Middle East. She started her career with organizations like Leo Burnett and Impact BBDO. However, she soon decided to switch to the client side and started helping organizations build their marketing and corporate communication functions. During her long and illustrious career, Marwa has helped create and manage strategic marketing communications for several international and regional firms, including government entities of the region. Marwa’s experience includes her work in energy, manufacturing, aviation, automotive, FMCG, food & beverage, construction, and retail industries.

A graduate of the American University of Sharjah’s undergraduate and post-graduate programs, Marwa holds a bachelor’s degree in Marketing and Management and an Executive MBA. She also holds certifications from the Center for Sustainability Excellence CSE in Brussuels as a Certified Sustainability Marketer and the Institute of Digital Marketing in Ireland as a Certified Digital Marketer.

Greatest Achievement

In her current role, Marwa started with communication development from scratch. Later she moved into the overhaul and upscaling of the marketing delivery. Marwa feels her most significant achievement was forming a team of marketing and communications titans who eventually worked to improve brand equity and have tremendously grown the company’s marketing and PR value. Even during the pandemic, Al Masaood LLC’s brands experienced the greatest growth, with its PR value rising by over 700 percent and its sales increasing by six folds.

An Ever-Evolving Industry

As a veteran of the industry, Marwa would like much more cohesion and harmony among marketing and communication practitioners. Thanks to the abundance of data, the lines between marketing and communication practices have been blurred completely, and now the primary challenge is to know how to best leverage the data to help a brand thrive. Marwa believes introducing efficiencies across both disciplines is of utmost importance. Presently marketers are being challenged, and their roles are becoming extremely complex as they shoulder the additional responsibilities of business transformations. So, present-day marketing and communication practitioners need to start a brand’s transformation from the inside by developing performance-driven cultures and then transitioning it to reflect on the outside.

A Different Organization

Growth is an ongoing objective for everyone at Al Masaood. It needs continuous work and transformation to keep up with the changing market trends and customer preferences. As a part of the group’s customer-centric ethos, Al Masaood always looks to provide value-driven experiences and services to its clients and customers. As a company, Al Masaood places a strong emphasis on building long-standing and fruitful relationships with all of its stakeholders. Its vision of growing together, delivering value, and embracing heritage set the group apart from its competitors.

Picture of the Future

Since its inception Al Masaood has faithfully served the UAE across the fields it operates in. For over the last five decades, the group has moved in synergy with the UAE, and now as it embarks on the next 50 years journey, it is aligned with the country’s vision by continuously diversifying and investing in the economy’s key strategic sectors.

Marwa says, “Al Masaood’s future plans also consider the pressing environmental factors around us. As such, we have developed a strategy that places sustainability and innovation at the core. From electrification to renewables, clean energy, diversification, and customer centricity, we’ve got a busy agenda at hand.”

Kiran Haslam: Redefining Leadership

Meet Kiran Jay Haslam, the Chief Marketing Officer for the Diriyah Gate Development Authority, establishing Diriyah within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and re-establishing its position internationally, not just as the birthplace of the Kingdom but also as a center for heritage and culture in Arabia.

Kiran started his journey as a young man intrigued by nature and the underwater world of oceans and the Amazon. So, he joined the university to study Marine Biology due to his fascination for Ichthyology, but it quickly morphed into engineering and technology, where he completed his graduation. In his early days, Kiran toured the entire world as a jazz musician and composer, performing at concerts and festivals and writing and performing compositions for film and television programs. Kiran describes himself as a true nomad, fully dedicated to chasing discomfort and forever on a mission to experience new things and shift into new roles. He has worked in public relations, advertising, and media. Kiran has also worked as an editor and writer focusing on art, travel, and automotive. Recently he has also authored a couple of story books for children to raise funds for conservation.

“From a young age, I was exposed to the world uniquely and powerfully due to my expatriate family life. In my youth, we lived in Penang, Singapore, and California for several years, exposing me to different sounds, sights, smells, and tastes. At a young age, I took an anthropological leap into the work of Joseph Campbell, and that is probably where the first burst of marketing kicked into play to complement the understanding of human behavior I garnered from being a professional musician and entertainer. Campbell also joined the dots for me on Carl Jung’s “archetypes of the collective unconscious,” which is where my marketing approach tapped into the essence of branding.”- Says Kiran.

Greatest Accomplishment

Kiran feels his most significant achievement at DGDA is bringing together one of the most talented marketing teams. This team has a unique Saudi voice with a global understanding and is motivated to take everything to the next level – even when levels don’t exist!

On the personal front, he feels his greatest achievement would be bringing a unique creative voice and touch to a corporate table and bringing significant change, which is hard to do in most corporations due to the ‘play it far too safe’ stance and lack of understanding on how creative arts can drive innovation in an organization.

A different Organization

Kiran knows everyone at DGDA truly believes in Diriyah, making it far less daunting to realize that nothing like this has ever been created or delivered. Especially nothing in terms of the scale or complexity, with the added layers of traditional architecture and mud-brick construction techniques, a truly smart city, and pedestrianized urban living, all of which are community-centric.

Kiran and his team are also enthusiastic about the fact that they have a significant role to play in Vision 2030, and thanks to the leadership of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Salman bin Abdulaziz, His Royal Highness Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and of course the amazing Jerry Inzerillo help them make enormous strides towards building a vibrant society with a thriving economy are taking place across the Kingdom. “Diriyah is unique in the rate at which it is coming to life and its significance being a human-scale development in the capital city of Riyadh.”– He says.

What Success Looks Like

Success for Kiran would be changing people’s misconceptions about the Kingdom. “Stereotypes in films and popular culture have fed into a very shallow understanding of Saudi Arabia for many people worldwide over several decades. They don’t know Saudi yet, but more and more people are visiting Saudi for themselves, engaging with real people – Saudis from all walks of life – and traveling across the Kingdom to see breathtaking environments.”- He states.

Being the 15th largest country on the planet, with so much to offer visitors, Diriyah will soon be a focal point for this visitation, and Kiran feels the project has a unique ability to remove all prejudices, misconceptions, and narrow-minded views, leaving all those who interact with us with a real understanding of the culture, customs, traditions, and warmth that are entirely unique to the Kingdom.

For DGDA, success can be measured over time by its contribution of over $7.2 billion to the Kingdom’s GDP, creation of over 55,000 jobs, and the attraction of visitors across the world to increase the tourist footfall in the Kingdom to over 27 million each year by 2030.

Future Roadmap

Kingdom’s At-Turaif UNESCO World Heritage Site stands at the project’s centerpiece and serves as the inspiration for what Kiran and his team do. DGDA’s aim for Diriyah to return to being one of the great gathering places in the world, with the same status that the Acropolis has to the Greeks or the Colosseum has to the Romans.

How Upselling Can Help Your Business

Upselling is one of the popular tactics in many businesses to increase sales profit. This sales technique influences customers to buy a more expensive, upgraded product or service to achieve greater sales profit. Many bigger organizations or businesses often use Upselling and Cross-selling sales tactics to help maximize their revenue growth. 

A HubSpot survey in 2022 revealed that 72% of people who use upsell and 74% who use cross-sell said that it drives their revenue growth up to 30%. This data opens up actual profit, and revenue growth businesses gain through sales upsell and cross-sell tactics. Though sometimes people take these sales tactics and strategies in a negative way but if it goes right, then it can actually improve customers’ buying experience. 

Actual Concept of Upselling

Upselling encourages customers to purchase a more expensive, comparable, premium version of a product. In the upselling strategy, you have to develop your product better than the previous one, in which customers take more interest. If customers find a premium version of that product, they are likely to buy it at a high price. You can gain loyalty and satisfaction from customers as you offer them a high-quality product. Generally, existing customers are more likely to purchase your upselling products than your new prospects. To make it more simple, we try to understand upselling with an example. 

Example of Upselling

Suppose there is an electronic company that sells earphones to customers. If this company has to earn more profit from that electronic product, then it has to use one of the tactics. Sales representatives in this company suggest adding a new noise canceling feature to the same earphones. Then this same earphone with added noise canceling feature comes into the market at a higher price, and customers happily buy it. So, this addition of new features by increasing the price of that product is exactly what we call upselling of the product. This upselling tactic fulfills the needs of customers in a better way and generates good profits for sellers also. 

I think the above upselling example can give you a clear idea of the Upselling concept in sales tactics. In this article, we will discuss how upselling helps businesses by offering several benefits.

  • Increase revenue of the business

Business growth is not simply retaining customers you have. It is important to increase your profits and business revenue wallet by selling your products to existing customers. The upselling strategy offers a superior and expensive product to customers, which they buy to fulfill their needs in a better way which adds profits to the company’s revenue. Upselling is the best marketing strategy because it gives you return money instead of spending to attract new customers and buyers for your products. 

  • Increase customer loyalty

In fact, upselling sales tactics are closely related to customer satisfaction. In business, customers’ loyalty and retaining ability are the major problems leading to the steady growth of the business. In upselling, you increase the average order value of the product along with its durability and quality experience from that product. So, this quality enhancement of product helps you to gain cusomters’ support and retenation. These added features impress customers to buy your product without regretting extra costs. If those upselling features are better than the previous version of that product, then customers become more satisfy and loyal toward your product brand. 

  • Enhance ROI 

Upselling offers your quick business profits with a high return on investment. After hard work of marketing, finding customers, and selling desirable products, you must focus on upselling your products to increase the company’s ROI. If you do not apply this tactic to your products, you literally lose half of the money of your profit margin. Increasing interaction with your current leads can give you more orders and opportunities to apply this strategy to generate better ROI profits. 

  • Improve customer lifetime value

Customer lifetime value is the average value spent by customers on your business or product during the lifetime of a business relationship. You can categorize your customers into less profitable, profitable, and highly profitable, which gives you a clear value of CLV. Upselling is one of the best techniques to raise Customer lifetime value for your business. Improved features in your products force customers to come back to your business to buy again, and this strategy allows you to add new features to the product. The return rate of customers towards your products strengthens your business relationship for a lifetime which likely tends to increase the CLV of your company. 

  • Offers flexibility to customers

Upselling and cross-selling strategies not only generate business sales profits but are also useful in giving the best convenient service to customers. In upselling, you give add-ons and updated service with your product, which allows customers to choose what they want according to their requirements. This convenience deepens customer relationships with your company for a long time. 

  • Balance growth of new and existing customers

Upselling helps your organization to maintain a healthy ratio of new and existing customers. Existing customers are more likely attracted to your deals and premium than new buyers. New customer growth is essential to build the future of your company, and existing customers are the survival of your company. So, applying an upselling tactic wisely gives you a good response from both type of customers in the market. 

Final Thoughts 

These benefits of upselling greatly assist your business in generating considerable profits with customer satisfaction. Upselling is not a dirty tactic at all. It is one of the best marketing strategies to balance the profits of customers and sellers in the market. So businesses must use this tactic by doing deep research of the market, which gives you the correct idea about how to apply it for your business.

Foster Melliar UK: Upskilling Clients with Consultant-Led Courses and eLearning Products

During the early 1990s, Foster Melliar Learning Solutions was one of the first South African companies that adopted the globally recognized best practice approach to IT Service Management known as ITIL. Thanks to this solid foundation, the organization brought together some of the most skilled and experienced specialists in the country to supplement its ITIL portfolio with a range of best practices, including;

  • COBIT, best practices for IT and governance.
  • DevOps, best practices combining Software Development and IT operations, shortening development life cycles, and providing continuous delivery with high-quality software.
  • Agile, best practices relevant to Software Development Project Management

With the vision to be the knowledge partner of choice for consulting, learning, and implementing value-added business systems and processes, the organization introduced its first branch in the U.K in 2022 (Foster-Melliar UK.).

With this new branch in the U.K, Foster-Melliar is continuously expanding its portfolio of products and services to meet the ever-changing needs of organizations and individuals throughout the globe, which ensures its readiness for the deployment of new technology in the Beta and early adopter phases of leading cloud and related technologies, offering clients the competitive advantage of ‘first to market adoption.

As a member of the Foster-Melliar Group, the organization is a fully accredited consulting, training, and skills development provider. Evolving over 3 decades, the organization’s clients include corporates and skills, development providers. Evolving over 3 decades, the organization’s clients include corporates, individuals, school leavers, graduates, and various government agencies. It is a leading provider of IT solutions, business consulting services, and broad-based skills training courses that enable its clients to value and optimize various business and technology processes for individuals to stay ahead of technological advancements.

The organization’s innovative consultant-led training and coaching capabilities also help its clients maximize their human capital investments and quickly react to the changing markets by developing a framework to evaluate, deploy, manage, and extend the skills of their human intellectual capital skills. Foster-Melliar’s consultants are geared to deliver the programs and apply them to specific work environments.

Path Breaking Services

Led by its CEO, Peter Clark, Foster–Melliar offers virtual instructor-led training, consulting, and eLearning in a wide range of digital and IT skills. Through the organization’s affordable e-learning platform, clients can also upskill themselves or their entire workforce at a significantly less cost in a shorter time period with courses like the ITIL Foundation course, People Development courses, Microsoft Azure courses, or Microsoft Apps courses.

“Foster-Melliar will Educate – Mentor – Empower you and make your IT future possible through teaching, learning, and growing.”

Foster-Melliar’s Microsoft 365 training is the perfect place to start for clients focused on service and business management skills. Once the Microsoft 365 course is completed, clients can opt for other complex certifications like Microsoft Administrator Expert or Microsoft Security Administrator. Foster-Melliar’s consultants can also help clients upskill in various business applications like Microsoft Dynamics, Microsoft Power Platform, Microsoft Supply Chain Management, etc. The consultant-led trainers are also proficient in Service Management and Business Management training, helping clients choose the best platform and services that work best for the business.

Helping Clients to Improve their Skills

“It is essential to keep your employees certified and up to speed, from the CIO right down to the bottom layers of your organization, not just in terms of technology, but in terms of how each specific job role maps out within the greater context of what the business does.”– says Peter.

He believes that in order to improve their daily tasks and roles within the company, everyone and every company needs to learn quickly. As technology changes, the process for the tasks at hand becomes outdated. With courses being updated as technology updates, there will be a continuous need for people, employees, and companies to upskill. Providing the opportunity to learn and upskill often increases employees’ motivation for everything.

Tackling the Pandemic

Due to the pandemic-induced lockdowns and social distancing norms, corporate classroom training was massively affected. During this time, Foster-Melliar witnessed a sharp decrease in classroom training and an exponential increase in eLearning self-study training on its online learning portal and virtual courses through Microsoft Teams and Zoom.

With the resumption of the traditional educational system, Foster-Melliar now expects to meet the learning style of students, improve the efficiency and effectiveness of students and courses, improve user accessibility, a sense of belonging to a class or community, and discussions between students just like in the classroom, sharing knowledge, and the same quality of qualifications.

Picture of the Future

Foster-Melliar U.K aspires to be the knowledge partner of choice for consulting, learning, and implementing value-added business systems and processes. It intends to upskill and develop people as managers and leaders, which keeps employees productive and accelerates their career development for the better.

“Expanding our eLearning solutions to the world is our next step. The next branch that we are opening is in Australia.”– asserts Peter.

Capitol Technology University: Empowering Students to Build Great Careers

In 1927, Navy veteran Eugene H. Rietzke founded Capitol Technology University in Washington, D.C., as the Capitol Radio Engineering Institute. Initially, the institute served to educate radio and electronics technicians, and later with growing popularity, it started offering other areas of study related to engineering and technology. As the school evolved, it underwent several name and location changes before moving to Laurel, MD. Campus in 1980 and settling on the current name Capitol Technology University in 2014. Thanks to its strong leadership, Capitol Tech has grown into an MHEC-accredited, bustling academic community offering graduate and undergraduate degrees.

Led by its President, Dr. Bradford L. Sims, Capitol Technology University is a private, independent university offering 26 Bachelor’s, 21 Master’s, and 32 Doctoral degree options in a variety of STEM-based subject areas. Every program at the university focuses on helping students develop practical and modern skills that will make them valuable assets for their employers. Its most popular study program is its acclaimed Cyber and Information Security major, which has received several honors, including the 2020 S.C. Media Award for Best Cybersecurity Higher Education Program. It also has expertly designed Construction Management & Critical Infrastructure Programs, which help students prepare for lucrative careers in the industry. The career-focused university provides two unique promises for eligible students–the Chargers Assistance Program (CAP), which promises to assist students with paying off loans if their post-graduation income is under $50,000, and the Capitol Commitment, which offers to fund up to 36 additional academic credits for students who do not find employment within 90 days of graduation.

A Technology-Obsessed Leader

Dr. Bradford L. Sims joined Capitol Technology University in 2017 as its eighth president. An educator, administrator, and construction project manager, Dr. Sims has a massive experience in academia and in numerous career industries.

Dr. Sims was introduced to computer programming at a very young age when he received a Commodore 64 as a birthday gift. Soon after completing his Bachelor’s degree in Building Construction Management from Purdue University, he spent significant time in project management for industrial construction companies. His technical knowledge provided him with the opportunity to not only oversee projects but to have involvement in managing the computer systems at each company he served. Later, he returned to the University of Florida to pursue his Master of Science in Building Construction and a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from Purdue. These studies eventually led Dr. Sims to his first position in the higher education industry as an assistant professor at the University of Florida. Later, he worked in various positions in the higher education industry before joining Capitol.

Setting High Standards

Capitol Technology University sets itself apart by helping students find their careers immediately after graduation. The university has partnerships with major government agencies like the NSA, allowing its students to build career connections quickly. It hires faculty members who not only have brilliant minds and a passion for teaching, but have worked in the industry and can show students what their future employers could look for. Additionally, Capitol’s programs are developed on the base of the current STEM career industry, and each subject area was designed to meet the specific demands of the job market.

Tackling the Pandemic

Although Covid-19 made it very difficult for many colleges and universities to operate in person, leading to a decline in enrollment, Capitol was already well-positioned to tackle the pandemic due to its existing robust online learning infrastructure.

“While we missed the lively on-campus presence of our undergraduate students during 2020, we successfully continued operations virtually and maintained the same level of quality and excellence that our community expects.”- Dr. Sims said.

Helping Students Build Great Careers

Since its foundation in 1927, Capitol’s primary mission has been to provide its students with great careers. What has changed is the university’s commitment to offering its education at advanced degree levels and the delivery methods of several of its degrees. During the late 1990s, Capitol Tech was one of the leaders in converting its Master’s degrees to online delivery, which helped it to reach a much wider audience of full-time working students. Later it added an online doctoral degree to serve working students who wanted to continue their education. Initially, the online experience was a synchronous 16-week semester. However, to meet the current student needs, synchronous delivery has migrated to asynchronous delivery with the addition of 8-week courses.

Preparing for the Future

As a career-focused university, Capitol will continue to look at the future needs of the industries it serves and add new degree programs and certifications to fill that market demand. Capitol Tech works closely and has many partnerships with associations, companies, government agencies, and government subcontractors and uses many full-time industry employees to instruct in classes both on campus and online, ensuring that the university stays active in current and future industry needs across the United States and internationally.

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