Mrs Beeton of Belfast’s Business solutions for the new year

Julie Collins of Survival Solutions presents businesses with a series of workshops designed to help cut costs and improve efficiency

When Mrs Beeton produced her book of “Household Management”, the housewives of the 1860s were provided with solutions to their household problems. No more discontented husbands, no more disheveled houses, and no more time wasting. Advancing on the basic philosophies of Mrs Beeton, this “overall solution” has become the precedent of successful homemaking, and these standards needn’t apply just to the maintenance of one’s home. Inspired by Mrs Beeton’s philosophy that counteracting basic problems and improving processes can improve the job in hand, Julie Collins, an entrepreneur born and bred in East Belfast, has come up with just the ticket for the struggling businesses in the 21st century recession.

Survival Solutions consists of a number of consultants who audit the day-to-day chores and “housekeeping” of a businesses, from processes as simple as form filling to filing, making sure there’s just the right amount of stock in the cupboard and enough timely cash coming in to pay for it, to ensuring you have the right information available at the right time to make decisions. Julie puts this together in order to create a bespoke recipe of efficiency and cost saving activities, ensuring your business can run as smoothly as Mrs Beeton’s most avid follower.

Julie took the first steps in her career at the University of Ulster, where she learned the basic principles of business. Her expertise and unique approach saw her sail quickly up the career ladder of leading hospitality and tour provider Keith Prowse, achieving a high profile position as the Director of Technology at the Seatem Group, assisting companies in 18 countries world-wide. With her breadth of business experience paired with her feminine and understanding touch, Julie has introduced a unique approach to finding solutions to everyday problems that all businesses encounter.

Julie’s bespoke solutions have been put to use by numerous companies, including a West-End London theatre, a call centre in South East England, and a multi-million pound client in the travel industry, each of them showing a huge turnaround in both costs and efficiency after her involvement.

Alongside setting up Survival Solutions, Julie has endeavoured to help others along the way. Julie has lent her business wisdom to the Princes Trust; an organisation designed to assist disadvantaged young people who hope to start up their own business, where she is both a business and specialist mentor. Putting to good use her special ability in creating a stable foundation, Julie worked with the Princes Trust on a house building project in the Shankill area, for the charity Habitat for Humanity. Julie’s mummsy approach was snapped up by Ashfield Boys’ School, where she was asked to mentor activities for their Young Enterprise Company Programme in 2009-2010.

In the new year, Julie will be supported by the highly reputable Moore Stephens accountancy practice to set up a number of new and innovative, free-of-charge workshops. The aim of these workshops will be to provide businesses with the starting blocks of their own survival recipe, whether encountering difficulties, or purely to ensure that they undertake a method to avoid problems in the future.

Attendees will be given access to Julie’s expertise in a workshop lasting up to 1 hour 30 minutes, and will be given a Mrs Beeton style Business Management pack to take away full of useful tips and proactive suggestions. 

Julie will also be offering a free-of-charge consultation to the businesses in attendance. If you would like to secure your place, please email [email protected]. Please note, seats are limited, and will be provided on a first come, first served basis.

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