Introducing…Peter Marshall
So Peter, what’s your role and what does that involve?
I’m the Sales and Client Services Director at CMCS. This involves managing our existing clients and finding new ones for Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity. As a DR operation, we are testing nearly every day to make sure that, when a client does invoke and divert their work to us, we’re able to immediately support them. The pandemic was great validation for us, and for our clients, that all the plans and testing that we had previously put in place came good when called upon for real.
When we are running tests of our client’s work, we ideally like them to be with us on site as they know their work better than we do. Covid made that difficult, as we were predominantly running remote tests, but nonetheless we never stopped testing throughout the whole pandemic, even alongside the actual invocations. The client visits and interaction are slowly returning now, thankfully.
How often do you get an invocation?
There is DR and then there is BC (Business Continuity) which are two separate things. Prior to the pandemic we had a DR invocation about once every two or three years. But then as soon as Covid hit, clients were invoking from day one because their staff couldn’t get into their sites, for example. They’d been paying us for this kind of cover, so this was a good opportunity for us to prove how valuable we can be. We probably had six or seven invocations of different scopes and complexities and the subsequent client feedback has been fantastic.
That’s the DR side of things. The business continuity work is more for overflow support, for when a client doesn’t have capacity for a particular job or has resource issues. This is far more regular for us and there’s always something happening here of various shapes and sizes.
What’s your career background?
I’ve been at CMCS since 2018 but have been in print all my working life – straight from school. Initially I started out on the presses, then in production control, estimating, and account management, and then finally into sales. Prior to coming here I was actually a client of CMCS, and was bringing my customers in here regularly. So I already knew Ben and the team here very well and knew what a great operation it was.
It has been very beneficial for me to see things from both sides. If you’re a client you only tend to see what the company wants you to see. You don’t see the behind the scenes work that goes into providing the final service. But when I joined it was clear that Ben runs a very professional and customer-focused operation with great flexibility and commitment from the staff, which makes it much easier for me to have a good story to tell clients and prospects.
Great! And what are you working on at the moment?
A lot of day-to-day stuff, like testing, and making sure we have an eye on what our clients may want from us in the future. I’m also always working on bringing onboard new customers. Another thing we’re currently working on is the social media side. Previously CMCS had no online presence and didn’t even have a website initially, so we’re now focused on improving our engagement and people’s awareness of us. To be honest, we’ve kept ourselves pretty much under the radar, which is sensible for what we do. We’re also conscious that maybe a lot of people probably know of our name but not exactly what we do, so there’s a lot of growth potential.
What are some common misconceptions about your job?
That we are all sat here with our hands behind our heads or twiddling our thumbs waiting for the phone to ring with an incoming disaster! Far from it. There’s so much testing and prep work that we are continually doing in the background to allow us to hit the ground running when that call does come in. At the end of the day, we’re an insurance policy, based on a “what if” scenario.
It’s a massive decision for a client to invoke DR and there’s big implications for their business in regards to suddenly having to divert work and maybe their staff across to CMCS short term. And we are very conscious of this. Hence all the testing and preparation work that we do every day.
Anyway that’s enough work questions. What did you have for tea last night?
This is a very contentious one for me, on the basis of – and I have this argument with these West Midlanders I work with – I have breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Not tea. So I would say for DINNER we had a roast. It was a roast gammon joint with parsnips and dauphinoise potatoes. I did the potatoes – it’s one of the only things I’m good at in the kitchen.
I think as long as you don’t call it “supper”, we’ll get on alright. That’s a good dinner. Where’s your favourite place you’ve ever been?
Errrrm I’m going to say Lake Como in Italy. It was a while ago, as part of a European road trip I did with my wife before we had kids. We drove through France to Geneva, then carried onto Italy from there. It was amazing.
Very nice! What’s your favourite biscuit and why?
My favourite biscuit is the M&S white chocolate chip cookies. I just like how they’re crunchy on the outside and gooey in the middle.
You said that so quickly and definitively, I get the impression this is already a settled matter for you and you had that answer ready to go. Do you have a favourite word?
The word I use a lot – and I don’t even know if it’s a real word – is “whelming.” Everything’s described as either under- or overwhelming, and I just want to know what ‘whelming’ actually is. So when things are just bang average… they’re “whelming”.
I’ll consult with Suzie Dent in Dictionary Corner and get back to you on its origins. How about a word or phrase you can’t stand?
The phrase that really grates on me is when somebody starts a sentence with “like I said…” When they clearly didn’t previously say anything of the sort. Often, it’s politicians who say it and it really gets my back up. It’s my big bugbear.
Excellent choice. Who would be your three fantasy dinner party guests?
I’m going to go for Brian Clough, Lance Armstrong, and Piers Morgan. I hugely dislike Piers Morgan but he asks the hard questions, so I could just sit back and drink and watch them fight it out. I’m originally from Nottingham but I’m now a Derby County season ticket holder and Brian Clough had very successful times in both cities. What he achieved with, quite often, a ragtag bunch of ‘whelming’ players was totally beyond expectations. He also had some great ‘one liners’.
I think he’d also take a fairly dim view of your other two guests. Do you have any irrational fears or phobias?
I detest wasps. I become a manic flapper the moment I see one. I can’t see the point of them – what do they add to society?
It’s a valid question. I’d say probably about as much as Piers Morgan does. What’s something outside work you’d like to be better at?
Loading the dishwasher, apparently. Unbeknown to me, it’s an exact science!
I’d like to be a better sleeper. A lot of that is my own fault I guess. I spend most of my day staring at screens, then go home and look at a TV screen or my phone, then go to bed and pick up a Kindle. So I’m pretty much constantly looking at various screens and I think it has a big impact on your sleep. Also, my body clock tends to wake me up early every day anyway, which doesn’t help. I leave the house at 5.30am to get to the office, but on Saturdays your body doesn’t appreciate you’ve got the day off, so I wake up early at the weekends too.