Meet The Team: Neil

Neil Wooldridge

It was mid-2017 when Neil Wooldridge joined NTS. Since that time, he has become an invaluable asset to the NTS team. But who is Neil? In this article, we try to find out more about him.

Tell me about your role at NTS. What attracted you to it?

I’m the Business Development Manager at NTS, which makes me responsible for existing and new customers and developing business opportunities both inside and outside of our organisation. Alongside my BDM role, I am also responsible for leading NTS’s marketing efforts. Over the last 12 months or so you would have seen us go through a brand refresh, website update and the launch of our monthly Newsletter.

Throughout my career I have been involved in the delivery side of business, and have always been frustrated when a solution has been sold without consultation or collaboration with delivery departments. My current role enables me to address this common issue and work with our Delivery and Solutions teams to ensure we deliver the best solution to our customers that we’re also comfortable in delivering. This enhances NTS’s operations, as it better enables us to offer solutions we stand behind and are able to deliver.

What are your hobbies? What do you like to do to relax?

During our downtime, my wife and I love to travel; we generally stay close to home exploring the Sydney area and occasionally venturing further afield. Last year we were lucky enough to circumnavigate the globe; flying to the UK to visit family, then moving on to a European volcanic Island and lastly on to the US Pacific Northwest before jumping on a cruise ship and sailing home.

What’s the hardest thing for you about your role? How do you address that?

Part of my role is to ensure our business is continually moving forward and growing. But growth brings challenges. For example, if we’re awarded additional works, we have to deliver to those customers, which requires a larger workforce. However, supporting a larger workforce requires more work. This is a chicken-or-egg situation. Basically, if I’m able to achieve growth in the services we supply I can create issues for our Delivery team.

To counter this, our Delivery and Solutions department heads and I meet weekly. This provides a platform for information exchange, sharing forecasts and developing response to challenges we meet. This collaborative approach allows us to work towards ensuring we live up to our tagline of always delivering technology solutions with excellence.

What is most rewarding about your role? What makes it all worthwhile?

Quite frankly the two best things about NTS are, firstly, the people, and secondly, working for a family rather than a corporation.

When you join NTS you join the family and whilst that sounds a bit fluffy, it’s absolutely how the Conlons make you feel.

The NTS team is just that; one team all headed in the same direction and it is great to be a part of something a bit special.

Who has helped you most during your personal or professional career?

I’ve been lucky enough to work with some great people in my career, both here in Sydney and in London.

I had a manager who introduced me to networking, and who also had a strong customer focus. Later in London’s financial district, I was introduced to critical networks by a VP who demanded a robust environment with a high quality of customer service.

In Australia, I’ve worked with a number of high quality management, peers and subordinates and it is a testament to their high levels of professionalism and attention to detail that ensured the projects we worked on were held in high regard.

As you can see putting the customer first and ensuring excellent delivery has formed the basis of my career to date. Becoming part of the NTS team who Deliver Technology Solutions with Excellence was a next step which strongly resonated with me.

Do you have any advice to offer people who are aspiring to do what you do?

Business Development is often thought of as a synonym for “sales”. To my mind nothing could be further from the truth.

In my opinion, Sales is about selling a commoditised product and focusing on your organisation’s sales figures.

Business Development focuses on the customer and places them at the heart of everything we do. For us that means it’s about relationships, integrity, building trust, working in partnership with our customers and ensuring that the best solutions are achieved for them in each specific situation.

I strongly believe that if you look after your customers and look after your team, they will in turn look after your business.