Simply Operations

We’d all like to focus more on the services or products we offer our clients, but not one of us can escape the dreaded admin or compliance issues that we need to do in order to manage our businesses effectively.  And we all started our businesses because we wanted to focus on doing things we love, and for most people, that’s not admin!

With only a finite amount of hours a day, it makes sense, therefore, to minimise the amount of time it takes to do the stuff we don’t enjoy so much, such as invoicing or client data management.

And what about compliance?  We all want that comfort that we are trading in line with the latest legislation or that we have the right policies in place to manage our staff, and ensure the environment is fit for purpose.

That’s where I can help.

With a wealth of knowledge and years of experience as an Operations Manager, I have worked with numerous people, in a variety of industries, to review their policies and procedures and to help them identify and implement admin systems that work best for them.

The past year has been spent working with clients on their GDPR, whether it be producing their policies and procedures, providing training or giving consultancy advice on what changes they needed to make to become compliant.  My ethos has been to try to make it as simple as possible and to break it down into a manageable project and my testimonials show that I have managed to achieve this.

This year is the year of the ePrivacy Directive, which will compliment GDPR and provide an update to the previous 2003 Privacy and Electronic Communication Regulation (PECR), and this will give greater definition to the way we do electronic marketing.

To find out more, please get in touch via my ‘contact me’ page or call me on 01628 873 403 and we can discuss how I can help you.

My name is Sarah and I started this business after more than 12 years experience as an Operations Manager both in a London Corporate and in local professional practice. 

My journey to this type of work has been varied, having left school to train to be a Registered General Nurse.  After ten years of practice, I left to begin working for a large accountancy firm on their due diligence reports.  This work involved working long hours and was highly pressurised but also offered the opportunity to travel.  

A couple of job moves later, and I found myself working as the PA for a senior partner in a large accountancy firm, BDO LLP.  She was extremely supportive, quickly recognising that I was capable of much more, and it was because of her influence that I found myself promoted to Operations Manager.

This suited me much more and I enjoyed the challenge of a role that changed a lot over the years as the department grew from 75 people to 360 people, and a support team, for which I was responsible, growing from 12 to 40 members.

My experience in large corporate firms gave me the opportunity to work with people in a variety of areas in the business, especially HR, facilities, marketing, IT and Health & Safety and the skills I learnt from working with these people, served me well when I moved to a smaller firm and held the responsibility for managing or carrying out work in a number of these areas.

With this background, I have developed a broad range of skills and experience, which means that I have a lot to bring to my clients.

I started Simply Operations as I enjoy the buzz that comes from knowing I’ve added value to someone’s business, whether it be to save them time with their billing or that I’ve ensured they are compliant for GDPR purposes.  

In my spare time, I enjoy walking and photography, as well as drinking coffee (and the odd cheeky glass of wine) or eating out with friends.

Projects

Some examples of previous projects I’ve worked on are:

• Managing an office move of 360 people to new offices.  As the new office was a complete refit I was responsible for making sure the layout worked for our needs, that we knew how to adjust the chairs, had enough crates etc.  I also ensure all desks and cupboards were packed up, crates were properly labelled.  It was a lot of work but very rewarding, especially as it went smoothly.  I received an award for this work
• Defining, creating and introducing a support staff career structure and attributes for a large corporate firm. This involved liaising with the other Operations Managers in the firm, outside staff agencies and other accountancy firms.  It then was a case of mapping each secretary and administrator to the right job title, and to introduce them, and their line managers to the attributes, which set out what was expected of each level.  I also received an award for this work
• Working on managing the Anti-Money Laundry process effectively
• Carrying out a major data clean of our CRM system
• Working with the Finance department on introducing a P2P system, to manage expenses and invoice payments more effectively
• Fine tuning the engagement letter process
• Working with HR to introduce a new software system to manage the HR data for the firm
• Working with the accountants as we moved across to a document management system and the offices started to look to being ‘paperless’
• A number of building projects: roof repair, decorating, clearing of the external storage, emergency light repair, etc.

Described by one client as a ‘deep dive’ into their business, at Simply Operations I will work with you to ensure your back office systems and processes are suitable for the purpose that you need them for and that you are compliant in all areas.

Offering consultancy and project management services for your back office management, I can assist you with identifying the best software for your business, manage your office moves or ensure your processes are up to date and compliant.

Key areas of support are:

• Review of all systems and processes, including HR processes, Health & Safety processes and compliance processes and recommendations of improvements
• Implementation of any improvements and the  production of user manuals for all systems and processes
• Business continuity planning
• Workstation assessments for staff
• Project management of adhoc projects, including assistance with office moves
• Assistance with office management and adhoc projects
• GDPR and PECR compliance, conducting a high level of review of your business to advise you with any changes you need to make

Competitively priced and priding myself that all the work I offer is a gold service I have split the services into two levels; basic and advanced and these are defined by complexity and technical ability.