Focus on Fife : March

ROSS DALGETTY – C3NTRAL LTD

Ross Dalgetty really is a man with his finger on the pulse of his business!

 

Managing Director of C3ntral Ltd, in Cairneyhill, Dunfermline, Ross constantly taps into his laptop to control his business, from its financial performance to the whereabouts of his team of engineers in jobs across Scotland, Ireland and Europe, all handling projects for an impressive roster of blue chip companies like John Lewis, the Royal Bank of Scotland and Alliance Boots.

 

At just 23, Ross has been running C3ntral Ltd for four years and turned over £262,000 in 2007. His success is based on the key principles of superb customer service, rigorous financial management, good communication with this business network and team of engineers, and a constant eye on where his business can go next.

 

His core business, C3ntral ITS supplies engineers across Scotland, Northern England, Ireland and Europe through A-Novo Ltd, Orderwork, XCC and Dell, managing jobs like the installation of thousands of PCs for the Royal Bank of Scotland or Chip and Pin installation at branches of Alliance Boots. Drawing on his own early experience as an engineer and his keen sense of what makes good customer service, Ross puts together teams of engineers to suit the exact requirements of each job, at a competitive cost.

 

 

Early in business, he learned at first hand how it takes only one team member with a poor attitude to damage a company’s reputation and its finances, too. Fortunately, Ross held the company cheque book and averted a disaster, but the experience convinced him he wanted to go it alone in his own company, Numa-Tech Ltd, which he recently rebranded to C3ntral Ltd.
He developed an early reputation for professionalism and quick response when he provided eight engineers overnight for the Royal Bank of Scotland. That led to more work and proved that his passion for good customer service was a vital part of his business model.

 

Although he has no direct employees, Ross still has to manage many typical recruitment and staff issues. He keeps in regular contact with his main pool of up to 30 engineers by e-mail and telephone which clearly helps his speed of response when jobs come in at short notice. He manages the occasional staffing hiccup with much admired professionalism. Recently, for example, an engineer working away from home had to return unexpectedly so Ross arranged a shadow engineer at once to ensure that the handover was seamless for the client company, resulting in no loss of time on the job and plaudits from the company for unrivalled service.

 

 

In fact, good communications and service extends across his whole business network to everyone’s benefit. Having proven successful with his own company’s relationship with A-Novo Ltd, he persuaded them to consider similar operations elsewhere in the UK and collaborated with his regular contacts in England to help them set up in business for themselves.
Ross uses QuickBooks financial software to manage his company’s performance and has an instinctive understanding of the importance of strong financial control in such a competitive field.

 

Not content with things as they are, he recently expanded his company with two new divisions, C3ntral IC – Small Business Communications Services and C3ntral RITS – Residential IT Services. His new product offering ranges from designing and building websites, installing small business telephone systems to residential plasma TVs and wireless routers. Initially operating in central Scotland, he has ambitions to expand using exactly the same ethos of professionalism and customer service as ITS, but he recognises that dealing directly with consumers adds a new dimension to his operation. The rebranding to C3ntral was inspired by this need to communicate in a new market place.

 

Providing a local, cost effective service for people in their own small business or in their own homes has led him to explore his next opportunity – franchising under the banner of “My Computer Centre”. Although he won’t reveal further details at the moment, he clearly has big plans for 2008. With his sights on building his own dream home, Ross looks set to achieve that and further business success along the way.

The team at QuickBooks have generously provided some free trials of QuickBooks financial software. QuickBooks has been created for the non-financials amongst us and has a user friendly interface and a whole host of features to help you keep your finger on the pulse of your business. If you'd like to try QuickBooks for free, drop an email to QuickBooks@technetfife.com For more information on QuickBooks, go to www.quickbooks.co.uk