Gareth Edwards

Current

Director at Virtual HQ Solutions
eMarketing Specialist at The National B2B Centre
Managing Director at Arrowsmith Marketing Limited

see less...

Past

Director at 4sight Business Development Ltd
Business Development Manager at Imminus Limited
Strategy Consultant at AT&T

Sales and Marketing at AT&T ISTEL
Techie at ISTEL

see less...

2 more...

Education

University of Warwick - Warwick Business School
University of Brighton

Recommended

22 people have recommended Gareth

Connections

392 connections

Industry

Marketing and Advertising

Gareth Edwards’s Summary

Enjoying working with the National B2B Centre (in a variety of guises) to both help the organisation promote itself as an eBusiness centre of excellence in the West Midlands and to work with regional SMEs providing eMarketing advice.

Guest lectured for a number of eMarketing related MSc courses at the University of Warwick's WMG group

Also a Director of VHQ Solutions Ltd, which provides web-based business applications to small and medium sized businesses and support organisations

And continuing to provide eMarketing consultancy to businesses across the West Midlands and beyond through my Arrowsmith Marketing business.

Since September 2005 I have been a volunteer business adviser with Young Enterprise and supported a number of companies based at King Edward VI school in Stourbridge UK. In 2009-2010 it is the turn of Perception who have already done a great job in selling 400 copies of their "Unofficial Guide to King Edward VI College".

I have had more than 20 years experience in the IT and Telecoms industry initially in a technical capacity before moving into sales and marketing, with a variety of roles in product management, marketing management, and business development.

My main goal is to use my corporate and consulting experience to help clients move their businesses forward.

Gareth Edwards’s Specialties:

Gareth helps clients maximise the strength of their “value propositions” in order to achieve increased sales and greater profitability.
He pioneered the “Pains > Issues > Drivers” methodology which identifies what customers want from products and services, and from their providers, and then improves the client’s overall offer to market.

Gareth Edwards’s Experience

Director

Virtual HQ Solutions

(Computer Software industry)

December 2007 — Present (2 years )

Virtual HQ Solutions provides web-based business management tools and business support to young and developing companies. We help you to spend more time doing business not running the business.

The company was set up at the end of 2007 by myself and Denis Pelych and we count Office Lifeline, Labyrinth Consulting, MG Welding and Staffordshire University amongst our clients.

The VHQ WebOffice provides commercial strength business management tools in a powerful collaborative platform. The WebOffice enables businesses to work effectively even when the team is geographically dispersed and allows businesses to defer physical office upgrades until they are absolutely necessary.

VHQ Solutions offers a 1 month, no obligation free trial so you can found out whether the WebOffice suits your business. The service is then offered on a pay-as-you-go basis with full business and technical support.

Check out http://www.vhqsolutions.co.uk for more details.
eMarketing Specialist

The National B2B Centre

(Non-Profit Organization Management industry)

September 2006 — Present (3 years 3 months)

As a Centre of Excellence for e-Business the National B2B Centre (at the University of Warwick) offers consultancy and impartial advice to help small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) adopt e-business technologies and tools in the West Midlands.

I provide eMarketing consultancy to SME clients and marketing services to the B2B Centre itself.

eMarketing consultancy takes many forms; website planning, website assessments, SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), Social Media development and eMarketing planning. Each project is different because each client is different - that's what makes it so interesting. So far I must have participated in several hundred projects in various capacities.

The B2B Centre's marketing activity is very community oriented. We have a membership of 5,000+ who we keep in touch with via our website, newsletters, blogs and out LinkedIn group. The Centre also runs monthly web workshops, quarterly networking events and a variety of seminars and presentations through the year. In 2008 the Centre held its first annual conference which was extremely successful. We are aiming to make the 2009 conference at least as good.
Managing Director

Arrowsmith Marketing Limited

(Marketing and Advertising industry)

February 2005 — Present (4 years 10 months)

Arrowsmith Marketing is focused on providing eMarketing services for small and medium sized businesses.

The company has achieved success by being business and not technology focused. Clients like the fact that we speak their language, we explain things clearly and simply, we are upfront about what can and what can't be achieved and that we recognise that sometimes the simple option is the best option (especially when time and money are short).

Projects often start around a client's website. We can answer questions like "Why aren't we getting better keyword rankings?", "How do we generate more traffic?" and "Why isn't anyone buying?"

This leads to work on SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), content development (writing blogs or articles), Social Media development and website usability projects (how do we get clients to focus on what's most important and take the next step in the sales process).
Current clients include
Northway Holiday Cottages http://www.northwayholidaycottages.co.uk
Attract Marketing
http://www.attractmarketing.co.uk
Waterra - Groundwater Monitoring Equipment Specialists
http://www.waterrauk.com
Weatherite
http://www.weatherite-group.com, http://www.weatherite-manufacturing.com
ATP Instrumentation
http://www.atp-instrumentation.co.uk
VHQ Solutions
http://www.vhqsolutions.co.uk
Office Lifeline
http://www.office-lifeline.co.uk
Director

4sight Business Development Ltd

(Partnership; 1-10 employees; Marketing and Advertising industry)

July 1998 — January 2005 (6 years 7 months)

Marketing consultancy
Business Development Manager

Imminus Limited

(Information Technology and Services industry)

January 1997 — June 1998 (1 year 6 months)

Helped an excellent team of people to launch the Imminus Travel Intranet. The first IP trading system for the UK Leisure Travel industry. Plaudits to Chris Dawes, Adrian Briggs, Karsten Karcher, Mike Ruck and many others for their role in this
Strategy Consultant

AT&T

(Public Company; Marketing and Advertising industry)

1990 — January 1998 (8 years )
Sales and Marketing

AT&T ISTEL

(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; Information Technology and Services industry)

January 1990 — December 1996 (7 years )

Marketing Management, Product Management, Business Development and Consultancy roles across a number of market sectors (manufacturing, health, insurance and travel etc.) for a range of IT services (purchaing systems, travel trading, CRM and BPM software).
Techie

ISTEL

(Privately Held; 5001-10,000 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)

September 1984 — December 1996 (12 years 4 months)

Programmer to tecnical consultant on a variety of implementations for Rover, Jaguar, Land Rover, Westland Helicopters and UES Garringtons.

Trained in DEC PDP 1170's and VAX using RTL2 and Fortran.

Gareth Edwards’s Education

University of Warwick - Warwick Business School

Business Management Systems 1992 — 1996
University of Brighton

Business Studies 1981 — 1984

Additional Information

Gareth Edwards’s Interests:

Supporting the Young Enterprise programme as a business adviser, photography (see http://www.flickr.com/photos/gazzeredwards), learning to play my Fender Strat, Kayaking, visiting Canada and playing Badminton