The Essential Edge

Our team

Simon Knowles, Managing Director

Simon has over 17 years' market and business development experience primarily within the ITO & BPO sectors in the UK and across Europe.

Prior to setting up the Essential Edge, Simon was European Marketing Director for WNS, a global Business Process Outsourcing company. He joined WNS from Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), a global IT & Business Services and Outsourcing company, where he was European Marketing Director for their outsourcing division. During his time at CSC his division closed over €18bn of outsourcing contracts across Europe. Simon has also held senior marketing positions for other international software and services companies.

Simon has significant experience in the industry. This includes developing go-to-market strategies for companies in Europe; bid support for £ billion outsourcing programmes; driving new business by setting up European advisor, analyst & channel programmes and the creation and roll-out of international thought leadership and lead generation initiatives.

Ken Archer, Executive Advisor

Ken has over 30 years' senior executive experience primarily within the IT and Business Process services sectors across Europe having worked for companies such as CSC, SmartStream Technologies and JP Morgan.

Prior to joining the Essential Edge, Ken was CEO of SmartStream, a specialist Business Process Services company, where he grew the revenue by 50% from £37m to £55m in 2.5 years and successfully sold the business. He joined SmartStream from Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), a $16bn revenue business, as President of European Business Development and Member of the Board. His division comprised a unique mix of sales, marketing, legal, HR and programme management specialists which closed over €24bn outsourcing contracts during his tenure.

Ken brings a unique set of skills and insight that has helped drive growth for multiple businesses. Specific areas of focus include: strategic planning, sales management, establishing new channels to market, introducing on-demand revenue models, floating businesses, negotiating complex commercial agreements, setting up back office operations and developing new operating models.

Michael Kleinman, Executive Advisor

Michael has over 35 years' sales and large contract management experience having worked for IBM, HP, CSC and T-Systems.

For 5 years Michael worked as Director of Business Development Improvement for one of the top four global outsourcing companies and has subsequently developed a strategic selling methodology that he uses to coach at the executive, sales personnel or team level. This is implemented in the context of improving the effectiveness of sales personnel and, from a business perspective, the relationship with a strategic client or improving the win probability for a specific opportunity. Michael has had a material effect (along with client acknowledgement) on the win probability in opportunities worth around €5bn, including a ground breaking win for a major German IT services company.

He is passionate about helping sales teams engage with senior executives effectively by adopting a strategic selling mindset that is focused on the articulation of business value. He advocates the application of proven techniques to areas such as the understanding of client requirements, the client's political situation and its competitive environment.

Ian Carr, Managing Partner, IMC Partnership

The IMC Partnership was established to address a particular skills gap in the outsourcing and consultancy market. Ian and his team have exceptional sales backgrounds with companies such as Proctor & Gamble, IBM, Steria and Atos Origin. Their core strength is in new business development and devising strategies to open dialogue with potential clients.

The Essential Edge and IMC have developed a strategic relationship that is focused on integrating the core strengths of both companies for the benefit of our clients. The IMC Partnership is a specialist in helping IT and BPO companies build a client base through strategic introductions to key decision makers including CEOs, CFOs and CIOs.

Their approach to appointment setting and lead generation works because it is based on applying proven, professional business development strategies and skills as opposed to simply telemarketing. They have a strong background in new business sales in commercial environments and offer an unrivalled understanding of the IT & BPO markets.

Their methods are seamlessly imbedded into marketing and sales processes ensuring consistent levels of performance. They utilise a range of B2B 'pull' sales techniques, utilising telephone, email and postal approaches, and are capable of identifying appointments and leads at all levels of seniority.

Dick Johnson, Copywriting and Bid Marking Specialist

Dick Johnson has over 25 years' experience in the IT and services industry having worked for BT, CSC, Fujitsu and LogicaCMG. Trained as a Business Analyst, Dick worked in Business, Project and Account Management roles for many years, before turning his attention to IT Sales and Marketing in particular Bid Management and New Product Development.

Dick now specialises in two distinct areas: the development of marketing material for a broad range of businesses, material includes brochures, Web copy, marketing flyers, press releases, white papers, and editorial services; and bid management services for mainly blue-chip clients which includes consultancy work, bid marking, bid training and the production of standard text.

Ian Anthony, Technology & Automation Specialist

Ian has over 25 years' experience in the IT industry, focusing most recently on marketing automation, information management and data migration.

Ian has worked on a number of marketing automation programmes for global organisations in the B2B technology sector including setting up demand generation platforms including Eloqua and Manticore.

He has carried out a marketing business process review for global security software vendor and has experience identifying sales funnel leakage and misaligned workflow between external entities and internal functions such as marketing, sales and delivery.

Ian brings a unique set of skills and insight that has helped transform sales and marketing processes. Specific areas of expertise include: Marketing automation implementation, data migration management, information management and governance, business case development, test management, Eloqua certified, PRINCE2 Practitioner (P2R/334199) ITIL V3 Foundation (990258940) & LEAN Six Sigma trained.

Phil Alexander, Creative and Design Specialist

Phil is a creative and design specialist with over 20 years’ advertising and creative agency experience. This includes 8 years running his own successful agency.

Phil is able to leverage his broad range of experience having worked for B2B companies through to healthcare and general consumer organisations such as Roche, GSK, ASDA, Funkin and Bel Food Service.

Phil's pragmatic and can-do approach helps organisations communicate their messages in a credible and creative way through the effective use of communication vehicles such as video, web , direct mail and exhibition stands.

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