UK Corporate Excellence 2015 Awards

presented by

Driven To Success Stewarts Coach Group offer a premium transport service throughout the whole of England.

www.mueller-ahlhorn.com

Editor’s Note Welcome to the 2015 UK Corporate Excellence Awards.

The UK business market has seen a number of challenges over the past year, as the effects of the European economic crisis continued to be felt and consumers grew increasingly cautious.

Additionally, growth was slow at the beginning of the year as the effects of the general election led companies and government departments alike to reduce their spending as markets were gripped by uncertainty.

This unpromising start to the year has not hindered many businesses, however, as the UK continues to see increasingly economic recovery following the crippling recession. As such we are proud to use these awards as a chance to reward the deserving businesses and the individuals behind them that have shaped the UK market and led it to its present success.

Therefore we developed the 2015 UK Corporate Excellence Awards in order focus on those firms and individuals across the British Isles, regardless of size, age, specialism or value, that are not just successful - that goes without saying - but undoubtedly and demonstrably special; the people and businesses that define how we view and regard their entire industry and who, taking their place firmly at the forefront of their respective sectors, become a byword for forward-thinking excellence and achievement.

Contents 4. Stewarts Coaches Ltd 8. At Ease Catering Limited 10. C and K Meats Limited 12. Demotech Inc. 14. Dr D Mueller UK Ltd. 16. Saturn Security Installations Ltd 18. The Local Marketing Business Ltd 20. The Recycling Factory 22. Tramo UK Limited 24. Abacus legal Law Firm & Notary Public 25. Boxset Media 26. C D N Consular Services Ltd 27. Catering Equipment Support Ltd 28. Creative Capital 29. Cristofoli International Ltd 30. DOHR Limited 31. Eml Event Management and Logistics Limited 32. Extinguisher Hire ltd 33. Fleet Evolution Ltd 34. Forklift Training Academy Ltd 35. Gibbs Gillespie/ The Mortgage & Insurance Bureau 36. Gold Solutions 37. JLC Solutions 38. Matchmaker CNC 39. NoStairway Media 40. Orion Initiatives 41. Project Audio Visual Ltd 42. Q4 Consulting 43. Quantum Controls 44. Roadlink International Limited 45. RS Fleet Installations 46. The Change Group International Plc 47. The R&B Group 48. Working Capital Partners Ltd 49. Yorkshire MESMAC 50. Semefab Ltd

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Company: Stewarts Coach Group Ltd Name: Matthew Hobbs Email: matthew@stewartscoaches.com Web Address: www.stewartcoaches.com; www.woodscoachhire.co.uk Address: Headley Park 8, Headley Rd East, Woodley, reading, Berkshire RG5 4SA Telephone: 01189 831 231

Nationwide Coach Operator of the Year

Stewarts Coach Group is a premium coach operator based in both Reading and Leicester. Matthew Hobbs talks us through how the firm came to such success.

Our business supplies daily transfer services to a host of household named businesses such as Vodafone, Hewlett Packard, Telefonica O2, Invesco Perpetual, Microsoft, BG, Oracle etc. We provide private hire charter services to an extensive range of businesses, sports teams, tour companies, event managers, schools, colleges, universities, cruise companies, tourists and private groups.

Woods Coaches, purchased by Stewarts Coach Group in March 2014, has enabled us to expand the portfolio of services we offer as a group. Woods Coaches, founded in 1950, offers the largest day trip and holiday programme in the region offering both UK and European holidays and an extensive year round day trip programme originating in the Leicester region.

Recently undergoing a full re-brand to fit within the Stewarts Coach Group and a £1.5mn investment in new vehicles, Woods Coaches have also launched a new look website and brochures heralding a new era for the company. Woods Coaches also offer private hire and contractual hire of the Premier Executive coaches on offer at our Leicester base, with a large home to workplace contract in place with Next, with their headquarters situated in Leicester.

At the heart of our business is a passion for delivering safety and excellent service in all that we do. Our fleet of vehicles is one of the most modern in the industry and we pride ourselves in being the “coach operator of choice” for many blue chip corporate clients.

Awards help us maintain standards as they provide businesses with an additional incentive to gain attention for the delivery of products and services.

Across our Industry, awards are seen as a barometer of success and standing they help differentiate between the many “run of the mill” companies and those “true quality centric” businesses.

Awards are motivational for our internal people as they independently recognise the achievements and efforts made by all staff often allowing us to consistently re-assess our goals and ambitions.

We are independently audited for regulatory and safety compliance as service and health & safety is a key constituent of our culture. Stewarts always re-invests profits back into the business to support our ambition of being the very best in all that we do. It’s not just physical brand new vehicles that we regularly buy, we invest in the latest business systems and environmentally friendly engine technologies.

In addition to our staff offering a wide range of training and career development opportunities is our most important asset. Stewarts remunerate its people well above the industry standard. Our focus has always been to concentrate on the corporate area as we believe there is a huge demand within this sector especially within the London and South east region for high end coach operators.

Offering from the outset, high standards in both safety and customer service, from first point of contact with the sales team to the service that the driver offers on the day, Stewarts Coach Group has come a long way since Andy Cotton, CEO, purchased the company.

At the time of acquisition, the company was based in Mortimer, rural Berkshire with a small selection of older minibuses. The business has been transformed

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since its original guise, with a vast range of Premier Executive vehicles currently totalling 45 in the fleet.

To stay ahead of our competitors it’s important to recognise niche markets away from the core business we already offer at Stewarts Coach Group. Moreover there are several areas that the group are currently considering with further news expected in the near future.

The highest level of customer service is absolutely key when it comes to what we offer to our clients.

From the moment they contact us to the execution of the requirements of the client. Product knowledge is vitally important, whether it be to the service we offer or to the geographical locations we will be operating.

Transparent communications with the client are vital with a personal touch to ensure that Stewarts Coach Group are the only Coach Operator they will work with going forward. It is important to listen to the needs of the client, whether it’s the design of coaches when purchasing new additions to the fleet or to going above and beyond what we offer as a service to ensure the client is not left disappointed.

Working within the Stewarts Coach Group is like being part of a family, every member of staff feels a personal responsibility to the firm that we work for. With professional mentoring and training schemes and fantastic employee benefits, this creates a positive working environment which, for sure, results in a positive experience for our loyal client base.

Stewarts Coach Group operates to a very different mentality to many of the smaller coach operators that are found in the UK. Significant amounts are still

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family-run and are still in ownership by the original, founding members resulting in many operators not choosing to actively change the way a business is run and invest significantly in their fleet.

The management team at Stewarts stem from different industry backgrounds away from the coach Industry resulting in fresh, new concepts driving the business forward and likewise encourage competitors and peers to also adopt new working practices and standards of operating.

We are very proud to have been given our award as the Nationwide Coach Operator of the Year for the UK Corporate Excellence Awards 2015. This success is down to our ambition of providing the very best in all that we do. 90% of our business is repeat business, our attention to safety and service is why clients consistently use us.

We are extremely excited for the future as we look to continue and develop the highest levels of safety and service with passion and dynamism.

A recurring industry trend is the seasonal demand on coach hire with demand outstripping supply during peak summer months and a significant drop in demand during quieter winter months. As a business we seek to explore alternate ways to utilise the resources we have as a business to combat such trends.

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Company: At Ease Catering Limited Address: @Ease Carering Limited 129 craigflower road, Glasgow, G53 7XX Phone: 07341567077 Email: enquiries@ateasecatering.co.uk

Best Event Caterer - Scotland

At Ease Catering Limited is a Glasgow based catering firm, offering bespoke catering services to a range of clients. We speak to founder, John Buskie, who provides us with an exciting insight into this unique and dynamic firm.

Despite being established for just a year and a half, At Ease Catering has achieved great success, offering bespoke catering services for a range of functions including corporate buffets, weddings and private functions. John explained how his strong background in the industry has led to shrewd business decisions, which have ultimately driven the firm to success.

“I have been catering for over 20 years now, and as such I have seen a lot of people come and go in the industry. I have noticed that, because of the lack of steady income many firms catering firms have struggled, which is why I acquired a restaurant, which is now number one in our region on TripAdvisor. This has bought us financial stability, and has provided us with a platform to retain our staff, providing them with the consistency they needs and during the seasons when there are fewer events, we still have an area of business to fall back on.”

“Additionally, I try to break this down too, explaining to them where all of their money is being spent, from food to travel through to staffing and chefs, so they understand that they are getting value for money when they order their catering through us.”

“Right now I am planning ahead for Christmas, which is always a busy time of year in my industry, as well planning ahead for 2016. We have a lot of exciting corporate events ahead over the next year which will increase our portfolio.

Alongside this, John ensures that every client receives a truly bespoke service by never using the same menu twice. By involving the clients in every step of the process, John ensures that his clients are fully satisfied with the service they receive.

“Looking further ahead, over the next five years I want to own another two restaurants and ultimately be at the top of the Scottish catering industry. I have worked planning the catering for many major events in the past, including the commonwealth games in 2014 and I am using that experience to help me grow the business.

However despite this financial stability, the business is operating in a highly compeititve environment. John outlined his policy of honesty with customers and his dedication to transparency has helped make his firm stand out from his competitors.

“Because every client is different, with different requirements and different outlooks, we tailor every package to them. By involving them in the process we ensure they get exactly what it is they are looking for.

“Currently I am working on the catering for a wedding, where the customer wants all of the food to be local Scottish produce, with some of the supplies being sourced from areas where he met his wife to be.

Despite the challenge this poses I am determined to work with the client to achieve this and make his wedding catering as special as the rest of the day. It is this dedication to details which has helped draw customers to my firm”

“I think that customers appreciate my honesty. A lot of other firms in the industry provide their clients with a menu first, then calculate a price later. I do the opposite; by starting with my clients’ budget I can realistically tell them how much their menu is going to cost.

Purchasing local produce is a trend which John has noticed appearing increasingly within the industry over recent years, and it is something which he is an advocate of, as the produce is usually better quality from not having travelled so far and it helps the local economy.

“This reduces the stress on the client with regards to budget. I start with what they want to spend per person and help them to build the best possible package around what they can afford.

John has a number of exciting plans for the future, both in the short and longer term. He believes that winning this prestigious award will help draw customers to his firm and help assist him with his growth plans.

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“Planning is the key, and over the coming years I have a number of major events planned into my schedule which I hope will take my firm to the top of the industry.”

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Company: C and K Meats Limited Website: http://ckgroupltd.com/

Best Foodservice Butchery Resource

C and K Meats Limited C and K Meats Limited is a quality meat provider offering meat slaughtering and processing services to clients both in the UK and internationally. We speak to Kevin Burrows about the firm’s work and gain an exciting insight into what the future holds for the company.

C and K Meats is an abattoir providing slaughtering services for a range of butcher and wholesale clients.

Additionally we also process around 1000 pigs a week for various companies across the meat sector.

As such we have dedicated a large amount of time and energy to moving into Asian markets. I personally travel to Asia once every eight weeks and meet with clients to secure new contracts.

In the past we have worked providing catering services in the UK and working with retailers, however because of undervaluing we let those aspects of the business go in order to better serve our current clients.

Moving forward we are keen to continue this growth into the Asian markets, as there are a number of areas, such as China and the Philippines, which have a number of exciting opportunities for firms such as ours. Additionally we are eager to move into the American market, and I have assurance that there are a number of firms across the US looking for quality meat suppliers such as ourselves.

We work closely with our clients, and a few years ago when we learned that one of them was going to sell his butcher’s shop we purchased the business, and now sell our quality products through this outlet. Our butcher’s shop provides us with a unique insight into our clients’ businesses and is a valuable asset to our company.

Working closely with our customers and providing them with quality product and service is vitally important. We are lucky to work closely with high quality meat suppliers, and our clients trust us to ensure that this meat is of the best quality and to provide them with an efficient ordering and processing system. It is our excellence in this area that has led to our present success, and we are proud to have won this award as it showcases all the hard work we have put into the business.

In recent years the UK meat supply market has seen prices drop dramatically as European suppliers force the price down. However overseas there are many markets, such as Asia, which have held stable price rates as the market is primarily driven by brands.

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Company: Demotech, Inc. Name: Joseph L. Petrelli Email: jpetrelli@demotech.com Web Address: www.demotech.com Address: 2715 Tuller Pkwy, Dublin, OH 43017-2310, USA

Best Evaluator of US Regional and Specialty Insurers & Sustained Excellence in Insurer Financial Analysis

Demotech, Inc. Demotech, Inc. is a financial analysis firm, which has been in continuous operation since 1985. They have been a leader in the review and analysis of insurance markets that the legacy rating agencies were unwilling or unable to review and rate. We spoke to them to find out more.

We initiated our rating service in 1989 and were the first company to review and analyze independent regional and specialty insurance carriers, title underwriters, self-funded public entity liability insurance pools and health maintenance organizations.

Somehow, this fact eludes those that study insurer insolvencies. As such, we focus on fundamentals loss and loss adjustment expense reserve adequacy, realistic pricing, the quality and quantity of reinsur-

Today, Demotech reviews and rates more than 420 insurance companies writing every line of insurance in every US jurisdiction including Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. Equally important is our capability and track record in the identification of financially stable insurers, which really is second to none. This has been verified by our internal analysis as well as an independent study by The Florida State University College of Business, Insurance and Risk Management, which compared and contrasted Demotech ratings to A. M. Best, Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch insurer ratings.

What separates us from our competitors is that we are a credible and viable financial analysis thought leader, with long tenured, professional staff. In total, our four primary analysts have one hundred and twenty (120) years of progressively responsible insurance industry experience. Furthermore, the four primary analysts average more than twenty years with Demotech. As a result, carriers that contact Demotech can be assured of comparable treatment, institutional memory and consistent outcomes due to the professionalism and tenure of our staff.

As insurance companies work in a highly competitive environment, Demotech recognizes that size and survival are independent. The most costly insolvencies in the history of insurance have been larger insurers assigned impressive ratings by legacy rating services.

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ance purchased and the liquidity and availability of invested assets. From our experience, these are the true drivers of success and survival, not size.

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Company: Dr. Dietrich Mueller UK Limited Address: The Apex, 2 Sheriffs Orchard, Coventry, CV1 3PP, United Kingdom Tel: +44 7549 834830 Fax: +44 2476 996466 Email: info.uk@mueller-ahlhorn.com Website: www.mueller-ahlhorn.com

Best for Electrical Insulating Materials

Dr. Dietrich Mueller UK Limited Dr D Mueller UK Ltd aim to be their client’s worldwide contact for all their electrical insulating materials, thermally conductive products, gaskets and technical film needs.

The company views their customers are their employers, which is the reason why their ultimate goal is to win and maintain their trust and recognition through the provision of high quality service and customer care.

Customers of the firm come from a wide variety of sectors including the electrical, aerospace and packaging industries, among many others. This wide variety of clients has provided the firm with a wealth of experience which they draw on when working on any project, ensuring clients receive a top quality service.

“We assess and work out new ways for processing your tasks by the use of the latest methods and tools; we draw up, manufacture samples and prototypes, so that your company’s ongoing development is maintained.”

Ultimately the firm is dedicated to ensuring the satisfaction of their clients, and in the future are keen to expand their service and product range so as to further support their customers.

In addition to offering top quality materials across a range of sectors, the firm is also able to assist clients in the development of custom products. The firm outlines their dedication to this craft and their areas of expertise.

“It would be a pleasure for us to support you in selecting the right choice of primary materials. We consider your engineering requirements and commercial aspects as well as the possible areas of application for our standard materials and the simple processing.

“We also have direct access to special materials and the application knowledge to assist with demanding challenges.

“In addition to this we cooperate closely with the development departments of our suppliers, in order to be able to implement special requirements simply and quickly.

“If you have a complex problem, are searching for favourable solutions or want to qualify an alternative material, we are prepared to discuss the possibilities in person, at your convenience.

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Company: Saturn Security Installations Ltd Address: 678 Aigburth Road, Liverpool, Merseyside, L19 0NY, England Phone: 0151 427 5977 Website: www.saturnsecurity.co.uk

Nationwide Electronic Security Company of the Year & Fast Growth Award 2015 – Electronics

Saturn Security Installations Ltd Saturn Security Installations Ltd are one of the leading Security Specialists in the UK for NSI Gold Intruder Alarm Systems, Fire (BAFE) Systems, CCTV & Access Control.

Saturn Security Installations Ltd’s team of engineers are experts in the latest technology specialising in NSI Gold Intruder/Burglar Alarm Systems, Fire (BAFE) Alarm Systems, CCTV & Access Control. The firm’s team work 24 hours a day to protect your business, providing Commercial Security Systems, Domestic CCTV systems and state-of-the-art Home Alarm Systems.

and as far South as Northampton from their Liverpool base. The firm works to the highest of qualities and are qualified and insured to install on all premises.

Additionally, Saturn Security is approved by all insurance companies to provide alarm systems for the home and home cctv systems, the Department for the

Established in 1987 for installation & maintenance, we hold the highest accreditation for Intruder, Fire, CCTV and Access Control.

The firm offers a full range of security measures, no matter the size of property or the valuables held within. They meet your insurance and legality needs as part of our free consultancy service, when designing, installing, commissioning and maintaining your security system. This level of customer service is standard practice for all their intruder and fire (BAFE) commercial security systems, domestic CCTV and home alarm systems.

Integrated security systems are another specialism of the firm, and Saturn Security has the ability to integrate different types of systems, by linking them to their client’s burglar alarm system (e.g. CCTV monitoring for Intruder Detection/Access Control). The quality of their work with specific regards to business alarm systems is reflected in their high-calibre clientele, which includes household names such as Specsavers, Rentokil Initial and Holland & Barrett.

Alongside their business security work the firm also provides domestic clients with their top quality services, operating nationally installing as far North as Scotland

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Environment and local Police Authorities. The firm’s engineers are fully-qualified professional installers who operate and work with the most up-to-date technological security products even in home burglar alarms.

Where businesses are concerned, the company offer the option to lease rather than buy or even purchase over a longer period of time.

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Name: Paul Kurnyta Email: paul@thelocalmarketingbusiness.co.uk Web: www.thelocalmarketingbusiness.co.uk

Best for Marketing Strategy - South West

The Local Marketing Business Ltd With a proven track record of helping any business take control of their marketing, The Local Marketing Business adds structure and strategy whilst implementing the main marketing activities necessary to grow any business.

Paul Kurnyta took the time to speak with us about how his services evolved and what winning this award means at this crucial point in his collective career.

I started the business back in April 2009, not long into the recession, after spending 12 years in commercial radio sales. I initially wanted to offer a service whereby I’d help local clients book and plan their local advertising.

However, after a couple of months into my business, I realised that clients needed more help with their general marketing activities more so than just their advertising. So, I began to slowly take clients away from advertising as their first choice in the marketing of their business. Instead I focused on helping them develop and grow other platforms like social media, websites, email marketing and so on.

I now offer two main services. I work with about a dozen local clients, managing their marketing activities.

Alongside this, I offer a consultancy service, available to everyone in the UK, based around marketing strategy. I also work on short-term projects with clients who have a particular need of my skills. One of the things I realised early on was just how crowded the ‘Marketing Consultants’ market was; it was filled with established agencies with a great deal more resources than I had.

I knew that if was going to grow and develop the business into a market-leader, it would take time. I needed to learn and master my craft so that’s what I’ve done.

Each year I’ve added another ‘string to my bow’ in what I offer my clients and just quietly got on with it.

Setting yourself apart from your competitors is a good thing and, as a small business up against bigger players, this award is huge in helping me stand out.

Personally, this award is recognition for six years of hard graft, sleepless nights and all the stress that

goes with starting a new business. It’s made me feel immensely proud and I imagine other winners must feel the same - so very, very important.

I believe that part of the reason I was nominated for this award was due to always being keen to make sure that I add value to my clients businesses, to the point where my costs are basically a no-brainer for clients. I’ve done this by adding new skills to my offering which are in turn, then used to better my clients businesses.

Marketing Strategy has always been the foundation from which I’ve grown and developed my clients businesses. Marketing is often over-complicated for small to medium sized local businesses so I try to help them gain a better understanding of how their marketing works, before actually doing any marketing. Therefore, I first had to master all the different elements of marketing; I then had to implement and develop these skills which made up the first 5 years of my business.

Knowing my ‘craft’ and being able to offer practical, honest advice is the main way to stay ahead of the competition. I also do a fair bit of consulting with start-ups and SME’s – with the aim of simplifying their marketing strategy so they understand how it works for their particular business. The types of clients I work with don’t normally have large teams of people or resource so it’s about trying to empower them to confidently do it themselves.

I’ve always wanted to make sure that I offer my clients value - I want them to walk away thinking, “Wow, that was the best two hours I’ve ever spent talking about my marketing”. If I can do this with every client I

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meet then I know that, over time, I’ll develop a reputation as the ‘go-to-guy’ for local marketing. Of course, becoming an expert on all things marketing also helps!

As it’s just me in the business I don’t have a culture per say. However, in my previous job working as the Managing Director for a radio station within the UKRD Group, I was lucky enough to be involved in a company culture programme which focused on six core values - to always be: Open, Honest, Professional, Fun, Unconventional and Fair. When I started this business I simply carried on working to these values - in fact I now use these values for all areas of my life, so I guess it’s become part and parcel of the service I provide to my clients.

One additional feature, I added to my business was a guarantee on all of my work which is, ‘If, at the end of the month you aren’t completely satisfied with the work that I have done, you don’t pay me, and you are the only judge in the matter.’ In over five years of offering this guarantee, I’ve never had an under-payment. I use it to give all my clients peace of mind that I’m worth the investment. I don’t commit clients to any length of contract and they work with me for as long as they wish.

Going back about 3 years, I have seen huge developments in the tools which allow a business to do-itthemselves. You don’t need to employ someone like me to do your marketing if you don’t want to or you can’t afford it. Website building for example, when I started back in 2009 they were clunky and very basic, now they are sleeker and easier to use, plus they have all the functionality a local business needs to be able to build their own website. Of course being able to do it yourself does not always mean you can do it well, yourself.

The timing of this award couldn’t be better as I’ve recently started working on a set of online marketing programmes aimed at small to medium sized local businesses.

I can’t give too much away just yet but I’m hoping to launch them by spring 2016.

Watch this space!

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Company: The Recycling Factory Name: Cassandra Gonzalez-Garcia Email: cassandra.gonzalex@trf-uk.com Web Address: www.therecyclingfactory.com Address: Marsh Lane, Boston, Lincolnshire, PE21 7TX Telephone: 01205 318 672

Sustained Excellence in Inkjet & Toner Recycling - UK

A division of Dynamic Cassette International (DCI), The Recycling Factory was established in 2005 as the recycling arm of DCI, collecting and recycling inkjet and toner cartridges from across the UK. We spoke with Cassandra Gonzalez, who gave us a glimpse into their place in this important industry and what it means to them to win this award.

The Recycling Factory predominantly works with charities, but we also run recycling schemes for schools, businesses and individuals. We operate a free collection scheme and have raised more than ÂŁ3.6 million for UK charities to date. We offer a donation for inkjet and toner cartridges that are successfully recycled, and 100% of the value of any item that is processed and eligible is donated to our charity partner or to the individual.

that a lot of our customers hear about us through word of mouth so excellent customer service is a high priority for us.

It is fantastic to have won an award like this and to have been recognised for our efforts in processing and recycling thousands of cartridges on a daily basis. Our success is largely down to the very people who take the time to send in their cartridges, or who spread the word within their school, business or community. We also pride ourselves on our environmental credentials and the fact that we operate a zero landfill policy.

One of our biggest challenges has always been creating awareness of what can be recycled; however, we have a great team of people who work cohesively to ensure that everyone is given the same information.

We also make it available on our website and through other literature in circulation. As long as customers have clear information from the start, the whole process runs more smoothly.

It is nice to be recognised for the work you do, and as inkjet and toner recycling is not always as well known in comparison with other industries, it is even more rewarding that other people can see the hard work that goes into what we do. An award like this may also help to generate awareness and interest from the wider industry or from customers who may not know a lot about recycling, but want to get involved to support their favourite charity or even just recycle to prevent cartridges being thrown away.

We have high standards throughout the whole recycling process and strict procedures when processing the cartridges. However, we also try and work with our customers as much as possible so that they can really reap the benefits of recycling with us. We work closely with our charity partners, to promote recycling to their supporters, as well as utilising social media to make people aware of our services. We have found

We have become more focused on ensuring that the types of items we collect are the right ones. We are part of a larger company that goes onto remanufacture inkjet and toner cartridges so there are some items we can recycle and others that are not able to be re-used.

Staying ahead of the competition in any environment can be challenging, but we believe that having a wealth of knowledge and experience behind us helps us to stay one step ahead. We are also fortunate enough to have our own UK based facility where everything is collected and processed under one roof. This means that we are able to track every item that comes into us and provide prompt and efficient responses where needed.

Providing excellent customer service is important to us, and as we are in contact with customers from all over the UK with varying questions and queries, we have to make sure we respond in a timely fashion and offer up as much information as is relevant. We always try to supply an alternative solution when we cannot help a customer directly. We are transparent about our services and try to make information available so that customers can access what they need, when they need it.

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We have a good flow of information and communication within our team; everyone works to ensure that our customers (and our company) benefit from the recycling schemes. We ensure that all staff receive regular and relevant training, and are kept up to date with procedures so that we are all on the same page.

We are one of the only recycling organisations within the UK that has both office and factory on one site. This means that we can deal with customer requests and/or queries efficiently as we have direct access to our factory facility, and from an environmental point of view, as we do not use external companies, our transport costs, processing costs and overall carbon footprint are reduced.

We also have experience working with large national charities through to smaller charities and have the ability to tailor our services to whatever our customers’ requirements may be. Being able to adapt, but still remain consistent with our service is what sets us apart from everyone else.

Our industry has gone through various changes, and as we are linked to a remanufacturing business, the types of cartridges that we are able to recycle can change. Popularity of inkjets can fluctuate which can also affect our recycling pricing structure – which is why we review it on a regular basis.

There has been a definite shift towards an increase in laser toner recycling in the last 12 months, and this could be because more businesses are using MPS (Managed Print Services) rather than inkjet printers.

We hope that we can continue to grow and maintain high service levels with all new and existing customers. We are looking forward to working with even more charities and extending our recycling portfolio so that we can offer our services to even more people.

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Company: Tramo UK Limited Address: Unit 16, Albone Way - Biggleswade Bedfordshire - SG18 8BN - UK Phone: +44 01767 313388 Fax: +44 01767 318405 E-mail: info@tramo.co.uk Website: www.tramogroup.com/en

Best for Logistics High-end Furniture

Art ….in motion Tramo UK Limited is a haulage firm specialising in transporting delicate and precious cargo. Enrico Rosa (Director of the company) talks us through their work.

Since Tramo started 30 years ago, we have grown vastly and quickly became the trusted partner of many famous European brands, as we provide a specialised furniture service for delicate and expensive products. In addition, products which are too delicate and precious to be entrusted to generic shipping companies are transported by our company.

We deal with every type of transport, from curb side to installation, national and international and bespoke delivery/installation services.

The firm began in Switzerland and we feel that the name, from the Italian word “trasporto” that means transport and “mobili” which means “furniture” and design accessories, expresses our mission, which is to provide the highest level of customer satisfaction.

We achieve this by paying extremely close attention to every aspect of our service and using our unrivalled industry experience in offering the most efficient and convenient solutions

Sometimes people don’t realise how many issues there can be in bringing a piece of precious furniture from the manufacturer’s warehouse to the installation phase, and it is our mission to solve them all so that to the customer’s eye it looks easy and with no fuss so they don’t have to worry about it.

However we are lucky that we have worked with a wide range of clients, and therefore have a vast and varied experience to draw on. We serve not only our traditional commercial clients but also private ones, delivering to houses, penthouses, mansions, jobsites, trade fairs, public places, showrooms, big retailer stores and large developments.

Alongside this, Tramo also provide photo-shoots. This is for the press and advertising sector with full transportation and installation service, interfacing independently with the editorial staff, film/TV studio and/or agency staff. We also manage the customers stock/warehouse operations in our own premises or in remote situations

In order to stay at the top of our industry we always strive for perfection in order to provide them with a consistently high standard of service down to every little detail.

For example, when we furnish a large home, we cover the sidewalk with padded carpet and cushion the interior of the elevator to protect against damage. We carry out a survey and arrange a hoist if the main access is not adequate to deliver the products. We take care of permits and any require certifications, liaise with top manufacturers in Italy so the customer can just have fun in purchasing furniture and accessories and leave the rest to us.

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with integrated logistics services and distribution. Working across this wide range of specialisms is a challenge but we are keen to adapt and enjoy the opportunities our varied work gives us.

Projects that we have been particularly proud of in the past include our work during the 2012 Olympic Games, as well as other projects internationally which have given us the opportunity to travel the world providing our top quality service. We are proud to list among our best customers and contractors top quality shop retailers, hotels, contractors as well as the top class of National and international society.

As a company we are constantly growing, and moving forward we are keen to continue with this strategy.

We want to continue working with top technology companies supplying the best possible service to the most demanding customers. We hope to expand our business base, taking on more staff so that we can continue with our mission.

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Company: Abacus Legal Law Firm & Notary Public Address: Suite 1C Olympia House, 62 Dame Street, Dublin 2, Ireland.

Phone: +353 (0)1 5987000 Fax: +353 (0)1 5987001 Email: info@abacuslegal.ie Website: abacuslegal.ie

Best Law Firm - Ireland

Abacus Legal Law Firm & Notary Public

Abacus Legal is a newly formed Dublin based firm of solicitors. We invited Martin Moloney, the firm’s principal, to provide us with a unique and fascinating insight into this growing legal practice.

Established in 2014, Abacus Legal is a young and flourishing practice. Personally I have over 20 years’ experience in the legal industry working in a number of major Dublin based legal companies.

The firm operates as a general legal practice covering a broad range of areas, although through my experience in the sector a number of specialist areas have arisen, including property transaction and litigation; information technology law, including IP and trademark services. Recently we have also moved into securing visas for students looking to study in the UK and Ireland.

such as Google rankings are also incredibly important and going forward this will be a critical aspect of my growth strategy.

Recently I have seen a number of trends in the legal industry, including the increasing need for website and social media law, and moving forward I will continue to offer these services as the company looks to expand.

This last specialism arose through my strong collaborative work ethic. I believe it is vitally important to form close relationships with both my clients and my peers in the industry, which is how I am able to receive many referrals from clients and form strong partnerships with private colleges, which is where much of the student visa business arises from.

It is this strong network which enables me and my company to stay ahead of emerging trends in the industry, for example regulatory changes, which occur regularly. Additionally the firm receives support from the Law Society of Ireland, who provide regular updates via email on new legislation. Alongside this I conduct regular research to ensure that I am always aware of any emerging trends which affect my specialist areas, as well as the legal industry in general.

One of the major challenges Abacus Legal faces as a young firm is staying ahead of the vast competition in the industry. My network of client contacts has helped to draw new clients into the business, but other factors

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A new market which I am keen to move into is immigration law, as my current work supporting overseas students in obtaining visas has provided me with experience in this area and I am keen to continue growing in this sector. Alongside this my future expansion plans will heavily involve establishing strong relationships with future clients in order to continue to secure new business and provide myself and my staff with new experience.

Company: Boxset Media Ltd Name: Mick Walker Email: mick@boxsetmedia.co.uk Web Address: www.boxsetmedia.co.uk Address: Antenna, Beck Street, Nottingham, NG1 1EQ

Best Corporate Video Production Agency

Boxset Media Boxset Media produces creative, inspiring and engaging films for corporate, broadcast and charity clients based all over the world. We speak to Mick Walker (Creative Director of Boxset Media) who discusses how the firm stays ahead in such a competitive and fast paced industry.

Boxset Media take care of all aspects of video production. With in-house experts on script writing, film making, casting, editing and animation, we have a tailor-made approach to every project.

In order to remain at the top in this industry, being hard working and dedicated is crucial. However, it’s also vital to take time away from the office; to experiment with new projects and keep up-to-date with training. We are currently developing feature films, scripts and short films outside the boundaries of our client work, and this brings freshness to all the work that we produce.

We produce over a hundred films each year, therefore to prevent our work going stale we always ensure we have a diverse workload to keep us on the ball. It also makes work much more interesting to have that variety. One week we’re prepping a drama shoot in London and editing a corporate film for a high street bank; the next week we’re in a green screen studio with a bunch of actors or scripting a TV commercial. By having a dedicated team that can keep their focus and deliver to tight deadlines, no challenge has beaten us yet.

Within the industry we face a number of challenges; in particular, technology is changing the way people make and consume videos. We’re leading the way by using the latest cinema cameras in our drama films and upgrading our edit suites to handle Ultra HD footage. Nevertheless, technology has never been our first priority when working on a project. The storytelling, communication of strong messages and crafting of emotive narratives – these are the core elements that make films appealing, whether it’s a corporate message or a drama. Technology can never be a substitute for an engaging story.

Looking to the future, 2016 will be a very exciting year for us. Currently we’re working on a pitch for a feature film and we’re also developing a number of scripts outside of the corporate world. We are growing our relationships with agencies in the region and this is bringing in more work than ever before. 2016 here we come!

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Company: C D N Consular Services Ltd Website: www.cdn-consular.co.uk Phone: 0333 8000 100 Email: info@cdn-consular.co.uk

Best for Legal & Regulatory Consular Documentation

C D N Consular Services Ltd is a one stop solution for their clients, specialising in processing export documentation, regulatory affairs, I.P. and legal affairs documentation.

Starting from a small office in Staines, Middlesex with a staff of four, C D N Consular Services Ltd has now grown to a 45 strong team operating from a 5000 sq ft, three storey corporate headquarters in Egham, Surrey.

Building on their expertise in export documentation the firm has expanded their skills to include translations, regulatory affairs, legal and IP, notarial, passports, visas and international legalisation. The firm’s expert team work with individuals, SME’s and major corporations in Britain and internationally, making CDN a truly global partner.

Over the years, the firm’s services have grown to provide their clients with a comprehensive yet flexible documentation solution. From their vast list of services, which includes specialist services such as translation and international documentation, the firm’s clients can build a plan to suit their individual needs, while remaining assured of the quality and speed of service they receive.

Working in such a competitive and involving industry it is important to keep on top of industry trends, and as such CDN’s continued dedication to technological advancement ensures they are always at the forefront of new systems and innovative ideas.

Through this investment the firm have developed their state-of-the-art Online Certification Portal to meet the ever changing needs of the exporter.

Alongside their dedication to technological excellence, the firm’s commitment to excellence establishes their continued growth as the market leader. Operating extensively throughout Europe, the Middle East, America and Canada, CDN is truly the global business partner of choice.

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Company: Catering Equipment Support Ltd Name: Greg Annalls (Commercial Director Email: greg@cateringequipmentsupport.co.uk Address: Wassalls, Hall Bishops Wood Road, Mislingford Hampshire United Kingdom, PO17 5AT Telephone: 01329 608239

Best for Catering Equipment Installations

Catering Equipment Support Limited offer a turnkey solution for all catering equipment needs and are agents for all main major equipment manufacturers with factory engineers trained on all makes of equipment. We caught up with Greg Annalls from the company who told us about why he believes they won this award and what it means to them

At Catering Equipment Support Limited we have over 125 combined years’ experience in planning , designing, equipping and commissioning commercial kitchens: Our experience has been gained in Schools and Local Authorities, Universities, High Street Food Chains, Pubs, Restaurants, Hotels, Sports Arenas, Public Attractions and Marine Galleys.

We offer consultation for the most effective and productive equipment specification and kitchen layout, Computer Aided Design to produce concept and working drawings, project management of new build or refurbishment projects and full commissioning of the equipment and project hand over.

this recognition underwrites the path we are following.

We believe that awards like this to be very important, especially if they recognise young up and coming businesses along with the multi nationals.

We try to stay ahead of the competition by investing in our staff and processes; our staff are the biggest cost to a business so we focus on productivity and completing works on time and on budget. However the economy has greatly helped our industry in terms of confidence to invest money in kitchens in both the private and public sectors.

The main technique we adhere to is to listen to the customer and their needs; once you understand their principle needs, you have the brief to deliver a successful project. Our overriding philosophy is one of “Customer Centricity”; we genuinely aim to put the customer and their needs first in all that we do, from brief, to design and specification to supply and installation. Most importantly, we know that if you communicate regularly, honestly and clearly any issue can be overcome.

Of course there are always challenges on any project.

Our main challenge has been in securing a reliable supply chain. Being a relatively new company, we have had to work hard to secure competitive pricing. But, at CES, we believe in working with a can do attitude. Our culture is to develop input and ideas from all employees with a view to improving our overall service.

We are honoured to win this award so early into our journey; we were incorporated in 2011 and believe

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We cannot be specific about what sets us apart from our competitors, it is most probably the focus on putting the customer at the centre of what we do, and questioning how our decisions and actions impact on the customer and the end product.

It would be fantastic to see the future, however, we believe if we continue doing as we are, we may receive future awards and the recognition that they bring.

Company: Creative Capital Name: Sam Forshaw Email: sam.forshaw@creativecapitaluk.com Web Address: www.creativecapitaluk.com Address: 79 High Street, Tarporley, CW6 0AB Telephone: 01244 561 343/07885 807 663

Best for Creative Invoice Finance

Creative Capital provide short term business finance to the SME market. Specialising in selective invoice finance, trade/stock finance and cash flow loans, we work with companies across all sectors who require additional working capital assistance.

Our clients tend to be owner managed businesses who are experiencing periods of growth, or require a cash flow boost to help manage day to day business issues. Our client service philosophy is to keep things simple, transparent, and to treat them how we would expect to be treated. These are the most vital areas for us. Our clients are busy people, and they do not have the time to deal with complicated financial matters.

Over the past 12 months, we have mainly focused on working with our clients and introducers to ensure we are delivering the right products for them. The main challenges have been those associated with setting up, establishing and growing a small business.

financiers to emerge into the market. The rapid growth of ‘alternative’ finance has continued, and we are now seeing business owners becoming more comfortable with non-bank lending.

down to hard work and team work. Being a small, owner managed business, also gives us great empathy with our clients, so we really do understand what they are going through and how they need our help.

As for the award, it is a truly great feeling to be selected. It is a vindication of how we work and how we aim to help our clients. Building a business like this from scratch takes a lot of hard work and dedication from all staff, and this award really shows how hard everyone has worked. The success of the business is really

Looking towards the future, Creative Capital will continue to grow our physical presence regionally, while continuing to monitor our products to see how they can be adapted as our client’s needs change. We will be also be looking to launch new industry specific products into the market place in the new year.

In our company, we believe in having a very relaxed culture and encourage all of the team to take responsibility for their clients and their role. This allows us to build personal relationships with clients and encourage the feeling that we are not a bank or large institution.

Perhaps our most distinguishing features are our speed and our flexibility. Because we are owner managed, we are able to make decisions quickly, and can respond to our clients accordingly. Underwriting and credit decisions are made in a matter of hours, not weeks, which enables us to help our clients when they need it most. Communicating and demonstrating this to our introducers is key to us, and is vital to our success.

All of these attributes combined have given us a reputation of being a refreshing alternative to the more traditional providers of financial services. We have seen the main high street banks continue to struggle to rebuild their reputation with many SMEs over the last 12 months, which has allowed more independent

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Company: Cristofoli International Ltd Website: www.cristofoli.net Address: Unit 19, Stephenson Road, South Hants Industrial Park, Calmore, Southampton, Hampshire, SO40 3SA Telephone: +44 (0)23 8066 1234 Facsimilie: +44 (0)23 8066 1345

Best for Lightweight Stone Surfaces

Cristofoli International Ltd is a pioneer of Natural Stone based products with a long history of delivering quality products and exceptional customer service. We speak to Alessandro Cristofoli about the firm’s dedication to innovation and how this bought about the company’s success.

Cristofoli International has an eighteen year history of excellence in the natural stone industry, originating in natural stone products.

on mechanical strength rather than chemical bonding of the honeycomb, ensuring that over time no risk of delaminating Stone will happen!

Over the years we have moved into lightweight stone, which involves backing Natural stone onto honeycomb to make it both lighter, stronger and more versatile in its uses. One critical issue with lightweight stone panels is the difficulty of getting it sit flat, something which Cristofoli International has succeeded in developing.

Moving forward we are keen to continue to take on large cladding projects. Now that we have laid the

This development means we are able to to produce vast panels which are suitable for larger products, such as cladding buildings and the interiors of super yachts and planes. Some of our larger contracts involve our lightweight stone products. Including cladding work for Next, the global clothing retailer, Galleys and Bathrooms for Superyacht interiors for industry leaders Sunseeker and Princess Yachts, and Onyx Bar Tops for Emirates A380.

Natural stone has become fashionable over the years because of its inherent beauty, which means that our industry is highly competitive. We differentiate ourselves from our competitors by offering a full service, from manufacturing right through to installation, ensuring that each service is bespoke and tailored to meet the client’s individual needs.

Offering a full service is hard work, and over the past year our firm has faced a number of additional challenges as we’ve moved into cladding and larger projects. Cladding in particular poses difficulties as there is a lot of regulation to work with and approval to be sought, namely safety. Our unique manufacturing method of inserting supporting screws into the stone rather than the honeycomb, ensures that we depend

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groundwork and won the approval we are looking forward to putting our unique and innovative product to use and showing our clients just how good it is. We have a number of big contacts coming up in the New Year with Next, and we are keen to further promote the Cladding product and attract new customers.

Company: DOHR Limited Website: http://dohr.co.uk/ Email: enquiries@dohr.co.uk Phone: 01923 504100 Address: PO Box 1159, Bushey, WD23 9FB

Best for Support Services

DOHR Limited provide a wide range of specialist HR solutions to various clients across the corporate spectrum.

Established in 2007 DOHR Limited provides a tailored mix of HR consultancy and HR support to SME clients across London, Hertfordshire and the Northern Home Counties.

Client relationships are central to the Practice’s partnership philosophy and as such the team work hard to ensure that the client experience is always professional, comprehensive and credible.

Additionally, taking a strategic approach to assignments, however big or small, enables DOHR to ensure that their clients’ Human Resources - their staff, are best utilised for the future success of their business.

Although the practice serves clients all over the country who are generally up to 250 employees, the firm’s main client base is London, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and Essex.

As an HR Practice the firm provides employers with a full life cycle service from recruitment and selection to employment law, policies and& procedures and HR management, through to terminations, redundancies and TUPE. They are able to provide their services on an ad hoc, retained or outsourced basis, tailoring their HR solutions to the needs of their clients.

of its size, it is obliged to comply with employment legislation and Human Resources best practice.

Ultimately the DOHR team are keen to establish themselves as their client’s partners, whether they are an employer or (occasionally) an employee and as such there is no charges for their initial consultation. The team are alwaysreadily contactableavailable to ensure that clients feel supported with all their HR requirements.

From Contracts of Employment and Employee Handbooks to HR Policies & Procedures and Redundancies or TUPE, DOHR are able to provide anything from ad hoc HR consultancy advice to a fully outsourced HR service.

When a new business forms, for success, it will need accountancy, marketing and IT support, often engaging external professionals to provide the expertise. Human Resources advice is no different. From the time that a business engages its first employee, regardless

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As such DOHR’s services are designed to enable a business to concentrate on its core products and services, while they take care of their Human Resources workresponsibilities.

Additionally, the firm provides services to a number of schools. , aAs schools are becoming increasingly business like and leaving local government control, and as such they are requiring greater HR support.

The firm offer a wide range of services across the HR spectrum for schools, providing them with full support and ensuring that the teachers are able to focus on their true priority; providing quality education.

Company: EML Team Name: Jon Huggett Email: Jon.Huggett@emlteam.com Web Address: www.emlteam.com Address: 1: 12 Melcombe Place, London, NW16JJ, 2: County House, St Marys Street, Worcester, WR11HB Telephone: London and South: 0203 086 8200 Midlands and North: 01905 330660

Best for Team Building Events

EML Team specialise in the design and delivery of team development, team building experiences and corporate events. With over 50 years of combined experience in the field of corporate team events, EML adds value to executive teams across all market sectors. We spoke to Jon Huggett, Owner of EML Events, to find out more.

For our process, we offer team experiences and team development formats that encourage team effectiveness by enhancing communication, cohesion, collaboration, time management, leadership skills and morale leading to an improved group dynamic.

Since our inception, we have always provided high quality levels of service, and over the last three years we have concentrated on recruiting high quality staff and having state of the art equipment.

We believe that this will ensure that the client gains a complete event experience and receives a real return on their investment.

In terms of our company culture, our buzz phrase for the last few years has been ‘Create, Deliver, and Exceed’. This translates into our objectives as we look to deliver high levels of service, quality and value to our clients. Three of our senior staff are also MBTI and Belbin Team Roles facilitators which enables us to give both quality and applicable feedback based on well-known and respected theory.

Achieving this award provides recognition for all of years of hard work that have gone into building our organisation. As a team building company, it is

Whatever the event, the EML Team ensure that fitting proposals and often bespoke event formats are presented to clients – whether that be a Maori Haka, a day’s sailing or more traditional team building session.

Furthermore, we are constantly looking to innovate in the market, and we do this by providing a variety of contemporary and original activities which allows us to be more than just a one stop shop for clients.

In order to ensure that we are at the forefront of our industry, remaining competitive, innovative and skilled is essential. At EML Team, we try to stay ahead of market trends and to keep our events contemporary by constantly updating our portfolio.

We strive to develop our customer relationships, as every customer is a highly valued stakeholder in our business. On top of this, our sales staff run a variety of events, so have all the soft skills and background knowledge to help advise a client at the initial enquiry stage - as well as get to grips with the event brief with all the necessary information.

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extremely important that EML Team has a great group of dedicated, innovative and motivated staff which we do. This enables us to be a market leader, and we believe our dedicated staff have been the key driving force behind our success.

Looking towards 2016 and beyond, we are very optimistic about the future of our company. We have just finished going through a rebranding exercise and have re-launched our website (www.emlteam.com).

We look forward to freshening up and polishing new events for 2016.

Company: Extinguisher hire Ltd Name: Alan Horsfield Website: www.extinguisher-hire.co.uk Phone: 07971567999 Email: extinguisherhire@btinternet.com Address: 26 Carr Bank, Glossop, Derbyshire, SK13 8TT

Best Extinguisher Hire Company - North West

Extinguisher Hire ltd provides a variety of fire safety related services. The firm’s Founder Alan Horsfield talks us through this innovative business and provides us with a unique insight into their work.

Extinguisher Hire ltd was established in 2007 and has since taken off, becoming a far bigger success than I imagined. Initially the firm leased fire extinguishers for the Ear to the Ground for the Warehouse project, and we are now their main supplier for all the fire safety for their company, offering both extinguishers and fire safety courses.

As the business began to take off I turned my attention to servicing fire extinguishers in shops, factories and anywhere else I could get my foot in the door, which lead me to gaining a number of exciting contracts with ITV plc including ITV news rooms, Coronation street set to name just a few.

As well as fire extinguisher hire, we also provide fire cover for events, TV and film sets, extinguisher servicing, fire safety advice/fire risk assessments and safety courses.

The main challenge that I am facing currently is working full time whilst also pushing forward with my own business, however I am enjoying the challenge and find the work exhilarating.

Moving forward I am keen to continue to grow the business, to become bigger and better as new opportunities and challenges present themselves and continue to provide my clients with the highest possible level of service.

My experience working in one of the country’s largest fire services for 23 years has been vital in the establishment of the business as I have gained the knowledge of fire safety within my role, as well as taking other specialised courses both within and outside of my job. This has enabled me to offer professional, reasonably priced services which meet the needs of all of my clients.

Over the past year the main area the firm has focused on is fire cover and safety at festivals and other events such as rooftop firework displays. As festivals are becoming bigger and more popular they are becoming a more demanding role for businesses such as ours, requiring more and varied equipment and more members of staff.

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Company: Fleet Evolution Name: Andrew Leech Email: andrew.leech@fleetevolution.com Web Address: www.fleetevolution.com Address: The Dovecote, Pimlico Farm, Austrey Lane, Tamwoth, b70pf

Best Salary Sacrifice Car Schemes

Fleet Evolution Ltd Fleet Evolution Ltd specialises in salary sacrifice cars, which, as Andrew Leech explains, is an exciting and growing sector for corporate car leasing.

Established in 2010, Fleet Evolution Ltd are a specialist in car salary sacrifice, the second fastest growing benefit area of 2014 which save employees up to 45% on motoring costs.

Moving forward, the future will bring significant growth but also a diversification into general employee mobility solutions, we are already deploying benefit schemes including train season tickets, the future will also

Car schemes are currently on the increase and 2014 saw a threefold increase in our customer numbers. As such we are signing 10 new customers every month driven by greater acceptance of salary sacrifice by employers, innovative product from manufacturers and simplicity from us.

Simplicity is what sets us apart from our competitors, as our scheme can be set up in hours not weeks, engagement is entirely down to us and it’s virtually risk free. It removes all the obstacles that finance and HR traditionally have, making our firm the top choice for many companies.

In addition we have a strong client care policy which ensures our clients view us as the best option for their vehicle needs. We view our customer’s employees as if they were our own, we take complete ownership and deliver real tangible and less measurable benefits to employee and employer around financial savings and improvements in recruitment, retention and productivity.

Additionally we have a culture of ownership and personal contact. We keep everything in house and keep in regular contact with our customers and their employees. Too many suppliers distance themselves from their customers by over reliance on IT, we insist on personal contact as this is a valuable benefit which needs a personal approach.

UK Corporate Excellence Awards 2015 Corporate Vision 33

being car share clubs and a consultative approach to meeting the needs of all employees commuting and personal travel needs along of course with driving at work.

Name: Scott Paul Court Email: info@forklifttrainingacademy.co.uk Web Address: www.forklifttrainingacademy.co.uk Address: Site 1 Unit B1 Cold Hesledon Industrial Estate. Seaham. County Durham SR7 8ST Telephone: 0191 5811155

Best for Forklift Operator Training

Forklift Training Academy Ltd Established in 2004, the Forklift Training Academy Ltd offer Materials Handling Equipment Operator training to some of the region’s largest and smallest businesses, many of whom have supported us since we opened. Scott Paul Court from the Academy took the time to speak with us about the training services they provide and what winning this award means to them.

Although the name suggests only forklifts, we offer training on a variety of material handling equipment types including (to mention the most popular) MEWP, tow tractors, powered pallet trucks, overhead cranes, VNA … we also offer the specialist training that runs along-side most of these courses such as emergency evacuation, slinging & lifting, vehicle marshalling etc.

A Nationally Accredited training facility all our instructors are registered with the awarding bodies.

We are honoured to be recognised for all our hard work and commitment; our instructors are second to none and have between them 80 plus years’ experience within the industry. There is no substitute for experience and it’s nice that the team have gained external recognition. It is important to be recognised for our efforts and commitment to our customers. We are small organisation in a large market so we are very honoured these are recognised externally.

We offer training to suit our customer’s needs; our pricing is extremely competitive and all who gain our certificates reach the national standard of safety, leaving with the competence and the confidence to carry out their duties safely.

The past 12 months have basically seen the usual annual highs and lows however, security over the local transport industry helps but the loss of the steel industry may see profits increase for a short period whilst everyone seeks alternative employment – however this often results in a huge lull in training requirements thereafter.

With the loss of larger industries locally, there have been many who require training to advance job prospects, we aid with the re-training and also assist those seeking employment with vacancies within the local labour market, we do not do this for personal gain, we do not have ‘job outcome’ targets to meet and fees to gain. We do this because we care about the people who spend their money with us.

Our candidates need to be relaxed, a fail could result in a missed job opportunity or worse. We all want everyone to pass, however we maintain our testing standards and by creating the right environment with approachable and friendly instructors we minimise nerves at testing. Our philosophy is to put the candidate first; put them at ease and gain the best possible outcome for all.

Currently ITSSAR accredited we recently achieved further accreditation and are happy to advise we are now a National Plant Training Centre (NPORS) and will soon be advertising in the hope of gaining more custom from the construction industry. The future is looking bright and our achievement should benefit our team and highlight the excellent work they do.

Onwards and upwards, the future is looking bright.

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Raising Standards in

Materials Handling Training

Company: The Mortgage & Insurance Bureau Name: Kelly McNally Email: Kelly.mcnally@tmib.org.uk Web Address: www.tmib.org.uk Address: 174 High Street, Ruislip, HA4 8LJ Telephone: 01895 622700

Nationwide Mortgage Brokers of the Year

The Mortgage & Insurance Bureau The Mortgage & Insurance Bureau was formed in 2003 in order to meet increasing demand from clients for advice on the ever complex mortgage market. Since then, they have established themselves as one of their region’s leading mortgage brokers. We spoke to them to find out more about how they became leaders and how they continue innovate and develop their services.

We are a Financial Services company offering mortgages and insurances related to all aspects of mortgage planning. Our staff have decades of experience in the mortgage industry and are either: highly proficient and qualified when they join us, or have been promoted from within our team. We believe that we have a truly excellent team, and we continually support each other, which we believe inevitably benefits our clients. With such a wealth of experience as this, there are few challenges that we cannot meet.

highly superior marketing campaign than most of our competitors.

As for the award, we are delighted to receive it and is proof of the hard-work The Mortgage & Insurance Bureau have done this year. It is very important to receive industry awards, not only for our team to be recognised but to be recognised by the industry and our peers.

In our industry at present, more and more clients are realising the need to protect themselves against critical illness and other similar issues. Alongside this, we are also seeing an increase in investment properties.

It is current trends such as these that we have our eye on, and we are constantly looking at any emerging developments that may impact our clients in the future.

In order to ensure that we remain at the forefront of our industry, we always look to review our internal procedures and ensure that we employ the best in the business. Furthermore, we have also expanded to new office premises which we feel will help us to continue to expand and develop our services.

Perhaps our best quality is that we deliver an excellent level of customer service, and we maintain relationships with our clients not only now but also in the future. We truly want our clients to be with us for their entire financial journey.

As well as the strong partnerships we have with our clients, we also have the full support of our Senior Management team and we have excellent relationships with our introducers. Additionally, we have a

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Looking further ahead, we are very excited for the future. As mentioned earlier, we have secured new office premises which we will move into at the end of November. Coupled with this, we have also secured the services of some excellent mortgage advisers and administrators.

Company: Gold Solutions Name: Terence W George Email: terry@goldsolutions.eu Web Address: www.gold-plating-kits.co.uk/ Address: Maritime House, Maritime Close, Medway City Estate, Rochester, Kent, ME2 4DJ

Small Business Award for Excellence in Customer Service and Value

Across the globe, Gold Solutions sell low cost start up small business kits to clients, and currently provide for over 5000 registered clients. We spoke to Terence W George, Founder of Gold Solutions, to find out more about their customer-focused services.

Throughout our entire business, we have a heavy emphasis on customer service, which we feel is dead in too many companies in the UK. None of our competitors consider it important enough to allow their customers express their satisfaction, and we regularly receive feedback on our service that allows us to continue to improve our services.

are recognised within our industry. Perhaps more importantly, we have also received tremendous feedback from our clients with over 99% of them rating us with five stars during this period.

Another important aspect of our service is that with every kit sold, the client receives completely free and unlimited telephone support (mainland UK only) as well as on-line support (worldwide) on all business building and plating issues.

In order to ensure that we are at the forefront of our industry, we are constantly innovating and developing both our product and level of customer support.

As the founder of Gold Solutions I am on-line at 7:00am until late into the evening 7 days a week.

In doing so, I am aware of all matters at all times, whether they are good or bad, and can give them my undivided attention.

Although delivering a high level of customer service is not the norm in our industry, we believe that delivering the very best service for our clients can be quite simple. From our perspective, there are only three main areas that really matter to customers, and they are: value for money, good service and then more good service As for the award, we are thrilled to receive this accolade. As we have been offering these exceptional and completely unique packages for nearly ten years, it is good to know that the standard and quality of our products and services are where they should be and

36 Corporate Vision UK Corporate Excellence Awards 2015

We find that awards such as these are essential as they allow those who choose to excel to be seen to excel before potential customers purchase products or services from them. In our industry, there is a growing appeal of these low cost business opportunities to people in almost every known country in the world, and they are seeking more control on their financial future

Company: JLC Solutions Name: Terry Abra Email: terry@jlc-solutions.co.uk Web Address: www.jlc-solutions.co.uk Address: 3 Symington Way, Market Harborough, Leics, LE16 7XA Telephone: 01858 465957

Recognised Leader in Supply Chain Management Recruitment

JLC Solutions is an independent recruitment specialist of Logistics and Supply Chain Management and offers a personal quality service, directed towards building long term partnerships. Terry Abra talks us through the firm’s work and their dedication to client service which sets them apart from other businesses in the industry.

JLC Solutions Logistics Recruitment, a well-known and trusted brand, serves clients ranging from SMEs to large international organisations and we have successfully placed candidates in a variety of roles in transport, warehousing, parcel carriers, customer service, project management and demand planning at all levels.

Centrally based in Market Harborough in Leicestershire, on the Northamptonshire border we are able to work with clients throughout the whole of the UK as well as internationally.

I am the Owner and Principal Recruiter and have a vast amount of experience in the industry. I was a Chartered Member of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport and have over 40 years operational experience in supply chain and logistics as an Operations Director and other senior roles as a Distribution and Operations Manager.

The firm was established in 2009, and during my time running the company I have learned a great deal about what it takes to build a successful business in this industry. Honesty, integrity, treating both clients and candidates with respect and providing an unparalleled high level of service are all key attributes which need to be incorporated into any firm to ensure that it succeeds.

They are particularly important when working in such a highly competitive market, and we have found it a particular challenge to maintain our brand and reputation when working against such a vast array of competitors.

To achieve this we offer both clients and candidates a 24/7 discrete, professional and personal service, with our staff always prepared to go the extra mile to meet their requirements and aspirations.

Alongside this, we endeavour to always be professional and honest, providing solutions which satisfy our client’s requirements instead of wasting their time with unsuitable candidates. We meet our clients to discuss and understand their needs fully and interview candidates to ensure that they are matched with the job for which their skills, experience and aspirations are best suited.

Our small, dedicated team of professionals have many years operational experience working in the supply chain, distribution and logistics industry in operational Senior Management positions, meaning we are perfectly placed to understand our client’s requirements.

We treat people as individuals, not numbers and will give them honest feedback.

Therefore we set high standards when it comes to hiring our own staff. Requirements include practical experience of the industry, integrity and ability to build trust with clients to fully understand their business and needs.

Within our industry currently we are seeing a trend for companies to restructure and become more lean, as they are having to respond to changing customer demand with the introduction of new technology and service options, such as e commerce.

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However companies are more confident, coming out of recession and there is an increased use of experienced independent interim contractors to manage a specific, time related project, where the client does not have the sufficient skills or experience in-house.

As such we have new goals as we move into 2016, with our overall aim being to maintain our brand and reputation and continue to work with our clients to help them recruit the right staff for their business.

We are now the preferred Recruitment Agency of appenticesupermarket.com a specialist apprentice trainer and provider and will use this exciting opportunity to develop how we can get new, young talent into the workplace.

Company: Matchmaker CNC Name: Colin Donhue Email: Cdonhue@matchmakermc.co.uk Web Address: www.matchmakermc.co.uk Address: Matchmaker CNC, Unit 5, Leatherhead Trade Park, Station Road, Leatherhead, Surrey KT22 7AG Telephone: 01372 844999

Best for Milling Products

Matchmaker CNC is one of the UK’s leading suppliers of machine tools focussing on high precision CNC machines and flexible manufacturing systems aimed at cutting edge industry sectors such as aerospace, medical, defence oil & gas and automotive. In addition to providing new machines to these industries we also provide sector leading service and support. This is backed up by our stock of spare parts valued at over £1/2 million held at our Leatherhead headquarters.

In winning industry awards such as the Corporate Excellence Award Matchmaker CNC Director Mike Maskell feels fully justified in the time and effort that the company has put in to providing the level of customer support that it has given to all of its customers, large or small.

“It is a very nice feeling when something that you do as part of the normal routine for our business is recognised in this way. For this we are grateful to all of the team employed by Matchmaker CNC.” Mike Maskell and the whole team at Matchmaker CNC are proud of the fact that the business does not rest on its laurels and is constantly striving to improve on what it already sees as excellent customer service.

Matchmaker CNC’s industry partners are exactly that, partners and there are regular discussions with them about the issues that Matchmaker CNC and its customers face with the focus on seeking solutions to problems that are current and some that customers may not yet be aware of. By trying to foresee potential problems Matchmaker CNC and its partners are able to develop and introduce new products to their portfolio and enhance the productivity of its customers in the most cost-effective manner.

The world in which Matchmaker CNC operates is subject to constant change, people always want new products, they need to get them to market quicker than before and, they need the back up and support of their suppliers, such as Matchmaker CNC, in order to achieve that. At Matchmaker CNC this challenge is recognised and the scale of the business allows it to react quickly to any situation that it is presented with.

The depth of experience and skills at Matchmaker CNC has available is a major factor in it being able to respond in a timely fashion to any customer requests.

Our philosophy in maintaining this is simply to be the best, Matchmaker CNC is a relatively small team and they communicate well both internally and externally. Matchmaker CNC also knows that, along with its machine tool partners, it has to be innovative in order to provide the right solution to such a wide ranging customer base, be it a small sub-contract engineering company or, a global Blue Chip manufacturing business. There is no opportunity to relax in the quest to be the best.

Matchmaker CNC’s customers expect instant answers and it has set itself up to be able to provide that wherever possible. It’ steam of dedicated engineers and support staff can react to most situations, but it also endeavours to be pro-active, communicating on a regular basis with all of its customers to ensure that their needs are being met, and if not, find out what can be done to help. Because of this level of communication Matchmaker CNC feels it can keep track of any changes that are taking place in the markets that it operates in, for example the growth in the aerospace sector and the challenges posed by new materials that are being introduced. Between Matchmaker CNC and its partners it can provide the solutions.

In doing this Matchmaker CNC has built a customer base made up of loyal, long-term, customers who have come to rely on the service and support that Matchmaker CNC provides. This is very reassuring in a commercial world that has seemed to become less loyal to suppliers and Mike Maskell can only put this down to the team of people at Matchmaker CNC who

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provide a service that its customers feel they cannot do without. As a result of this Mike is confident that the future remains very bright for Matchmaker CNC. 2016 will be challenging, but interesting, 12 months that will put all of Matchmaker CNC’s resources to the test, but it is confident that those tests can be met and the business will continue to grow.

Company: Nostairway Media Name: Rob Marshall Email: rm@nostairway.com Web Address: www.nostairway.com Address: The Studios - Central House, High Street, Hampton Hill TW12 1NS Telephone: 020 8977 6945

Best for Online Advertising Videos

Nostairway is a creative production company based at our studio in Hampton Hill, West London. We provide video production, audio production, music production and photography. We create adverts from scratch through scripting, providing talent, production, post production, original music creation, voice over and social media services.

Some of our clients include BBC, ITV, C4, C5, O2, Nickelodeon and UTV.

Recognition for your professionalism is vitally important to any business or individual. In a highly competitive field such as ours, knowing that your extra effort, attention to detail and determination have not gone un-noticed motivates us to maintain high standards in everything we do.

We instruct our clients to give us one simple remit: “Give us the exact message that you would like to get out and leave us to do the rest.” Often this produces results that the client had not expected but in most cases they know us well enough to believe that our work does exactly what is required.

We are always looking for new ways to help our clients.

Because of the structure of our company and studio facility we are already in a position to offer services at very keen prices. However, our clients also benefit from our enthusiasm for creativity. We are lucky to have a talented roster of actors/presenters and voice artists whose ideas and thoughts we encourage.

Our team is young and hungry for success. The studio is a hotbed of ideas and we can often get quite passionate about a project. Our moto is “Flexible Creativity” a kind of “where there’s a will there’s a way” ethos that has worked for us so far and we have no reason to want to change it.

We use the technical training we have acquired over twenty years to ensure that the product of our creativity is delivered to the highest standard. For example, pristine HD video is very nice but it is essential that the accompanying audio is created with equal expertise.

We often have to deliver high budget quality at low budget prices. But we always try to create as if we were a major industry player. As you can imagine, this entails a lot of focus and hard work. We benefit from a great deal of word of mouth and repeat business. Our clients keep us on our toes with ever shorter deadlines and other requirements. We have to keep our tools sharp in order to maintain this loyalty.

In terms of our overriding philosophy our clients trust us. They often ask our advice on matters unrelated to current work. We feel it’s vital to build a good relationship in this way as it instils confidence, making our client’s job, and so, our job easier.

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Over the last twelve months everything has become faster and cheaper, better cameras have made media production and film making more accessible.

We are honoured and delighted to receive this award as we know how competitive this industry is. In addition we believe that our creativity and flexibility helped us stand out from the crowd.

As we look ahead to the future our goal is simply onwards and upwards, to become a key creative agency challenging the like of Ogilvy, Saatchi and SBW.

Company: Orion Initiatives Ltd Name: Fiona Hayes Email: fiona.hayes@orioninitiatives.com Web Address: www.orioninitiatives.com Address: 5 St John’s Lane, Smithfield, London, EC1M 4BH Telephone: +442075493650

Best for Full Organisational Culture Design and Consulting Services

Orion Initiatives Orion Initiatives provides a complete approach to innovation and change for NGO’s, corporations and medium sized companies. Their process involves providing all of the elements that encourage innovative and new approaches, and getting businesses to fully understand the wider world issues and emerging new possibilities.

From our experience, most CEO’s do not know how to define their culture, let alone embed it and drive engagement by it. Last year it emerged in reports that information overload is a growing problem, and leads to overwhelming people, undermining their productivity and contributing to low employee engagement, and increased stress.

Because of this, we implemented our Organisational Culture Design methodology and launched www. bestcompanyculture.club to reach a greater number of clients, enabling them to build their own culture, in their own time. They also receive support and help from us through the internet, peer leadership groups and a community of inquiry.

The report on “Global Human Capital Trends 2015 - Leading in the new world of work” published by Deloitte in March stated that: “Culture and engagement are now business issues, not just topics for HR to debate. And there’s no place for organisations to hide. This year, employee engagement and culture issues exploded onto the scene, rising to become the No. 1 challenge around the world in our study.”

and models that drop into it, everything starts to fall into place. As a result, building and developing the culture to support the brand and the people becomes an exciting journey.

In our opinion, the best organisations have the biggest impact on society and the biggest impact on their people. This enables them to create change whether in incremental improvements or in leaps and bounds.

The leadership team is the lynchpin, but every single one of an organisation’s people counts in making the change happen, and people want to play their part and do their best.

We believe that every organisation has a unique value in the world and can discover a way to build that in a truly sustainable and extraordinary way. However, many things can make us hesitant towards change, such as aspects of our beliefs, our personal history, our group beliefs or group history.

Despite this, executive teams often start from a blank piece of paper trying to work out how to design a culture that fully supports the brand and their business strategy. We know from first-hand experience that starting from a blank piece of paper is the hardest way to design, evolve or embed a culture.

In order to grow and develop our business further, we are learning and improving constantly through working in collaboration with our clients who come from all sectors including, finance, agriculture, manufacturing, and construction, and professional services, pharmaceutical and waste management. It is working with such a variety of clients that has enabled us to systemise our approach to help teams find the unique value in their company and truly build on that to become extraordinary.

At Orion Initiatives Ltd. we have a proven structure with many models that fit into it, which allows for plenty of flexibility for our clients to build their own programme. Once they have a structure to work with

As for the award, we are delighted to be acknowledged for our achievements. It speaks to the success of our clients who in the end are the people who have truly shown the will to transform themselves.

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Company: Project Audio Visual Ltd Name: Mass Lambresa Email: info@projectaudiovisual.co.uk Web Address: www.projectaudiovisual.co.uk Address: Unit 2, 58 Portman Road, Reading, Berkshire, RG30 1EA Telephone: 0118 918 0180

Best for Audio Visual Multimedia Solutions

Project Audio Visual Ltd are a leading UK based audio-visual firm providing a wide range of service to an equally vast array of clients. We speak to Mass Lambresa from the firm who talks us through their work and how they have stayed ahead in this fast paced industry.

Based in Reading, England, Project Audio Visual (PAV) are committed to staying ahead of technology trends, and our objective is to exceed our clients expectations by providing cost-effective, high quality, future proof solutions that feature the latest, best, most reliable and most efficient technology.

In order to achieve this we draw on our knowledge and expertise, which combined with our extensive product portfolio enable us to provide authoritative, experience-based advice and unbiased recommendations to meet our client’s specific objectives and budget. We are able to design, supply, install and maintain all kinds of bespoke AV systems to a wide range of clients including Corporate, Residential, Medical, Retail, Leisure, Government etc. We are also able to accommodate projects for our clients no matter how what the size.

Working within such a technology driven, evolving industry means we have to be flexible and work hard to maintain our industry leading status. At PAV we are always in good contact with the manufacturers of the goods that we specify, which enables us to make sure we are always up to date with new technologies and can also offer our clients some of the best pricing in the industry. This also allows PAV to ensure our employees training and knowledge are kept up to date and ahead of the industry.

Additionally, PAV ensure a friendly and non-biased approach to our clients where we will always specify a system to best suit their requirements rather than to best suit us.

By offering unbiased recommendations and utilising our wide industry experience we are able to draw in a variety of clients who trust us to sell them equipment to best suit their requirements. They also trust that what we offer them will be at a fair price, rather than specifying items at a greater margin that will not necessarily benefit the client. They also want their systems to be easy to use, practical, reliable and have the ‘wow’ factor, this is something PAV always strives to achieve with our systems.

Future proofing the systems we design is also an important aspect of our role, because the technology industry is constantly changing and our clients need to know that they will not need to replace their full system in only a few months’ time.

Having friendly and approachable staff is another vital aspect of any technology business and it helps to build upon this trust which we work hard to build with our clients. Therefore, we also understand the importance of building a good culture within our business, so our staff feel supported and welcome.

As such, we always try to maintain a happy working environment to ensure our employees remain energetic, driven and focussed. At PAV we like to treat all employees the same and are generous with our benefits, and also like to organise many company events to keep up the morale. We feel that a happy working environment always leads to better results and happy customers.

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With regards to growth, PAV prefers to expand at a slow but controlled rate. We feel that it is best to add to our workforce when the extra work is present rather than to add number to try and generate the extra work. This is a policy we have used and stuck to over the years and one that has allowed us to grow to where we are today over the last 12 and a half years without the need to ever use any funding.

Therefore as we move towards the future, we are keen to continue with this programme of slow, organic growth in order to maintain our industry lead. As the technology industry is constantly changing we will of course be looking to move with this, adapting to whatever changes we see and attempting to stay ahead of new trends as we move into the New Year.

Company: Q4 consulting limited Name: Alan Crozier Email: alan.crozier@q4consulting.com Web Address: www.q4consulting.com Address: 2 West Regent Street, Glasgow, G2 1RW Telephone: 0044 (0)141 206 3855

Sustained Excellence in Employee Engagement

Q4 consulting limited is a boutique management consultancy involved in advising businesses on employee engagement, employer branding, and communication management. We believe in research-based consulting and so much of our work is informed by employee research conducted using our own unique survey suite of instruments, Q4:metrics®. Our overarching objective is performance through people.

Our clients come from all sectors of industry and commerce both in the UK and overseas and the uniting factor is that they believe in the value that their people drive in the business when they are aligned with and committed to their job role and organisational objectives.

There is a lot of competition in this area of consulting ranging from very professional to questionable.

We take nothing for granted, and are constantly examining our processes and ‘products’ and making sure that we stay focused and relevant. In 2011 our Managing Director, Alan Crozier, published a book, “The Engagement Manifesto – a systemic approach to organisational success.” This was designed to set the bar at a level to which organisations should aspire in their people practices. It was also designed to set our company apart from much of the competition and it had the added benefit of helping us win work.

Currently, 99 percent of the private sector is made up of SMEs. This year we developed a survey instrument to help them in establishing and improving levels of employee engagement (Précis™). This is a shorter and re-focused version of our more comprehensive instrument (Q4 Profiler™) which is used by larger organisations with a more sophisticated human resources function.

Winning an award like this gives us confidence that we are doing something right, but generally we believe that such awards help to drive a competitive element which can only be good for continuous improvement in the respective sectors.

We also hope the recognition that this award confers will help us move from strength to strength as we remain focused and pragmatic in our desire to provide actionable results for clients.

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Company: Quantum Controls Ltd Name: Kevin Brown Email: k.brown@quantum-controls.co.uk Web Address: www.quantum-controls.co.uk

ABB Drives & Motors Supplier of the Year

Quantum Controls Quantum Controls were established in 1989, and have been the largest supplier of ABB variable speed drives and motors in the UK since 1994. We have over 90 drive maintenance contacts throughout the UK and are the leading independent supplier of drive service and maintenance to all sectors of Industry.

Quantum received the recognition as a company that really does put our customers first, all of our staff receive continuous training to ensure they are experts on the ABB drives and motors. Alongside this, we ensure that all employees are employed based on attitude as well as aptitude to ensure customer service is the first things they think of every day, it is also the foundation on which we measure our KPIs. Over the past four years, we have doubled the size of our business, serving our clients at both a local level and national level. This growth is primarily down to investing in people to deliver the best experience possible for our customers.

that is unrivalled in our industry, however we also understand the need to keep improving if we are to stay ahead.

It is this constant drive to always exceed our customers’ expectations that has led us to winning this award.

Recognition such as this is important for our staff and our clients. Our staff feel assured that they are contributing to a successful business and our clients have the reassurance that they are dealing with a company that has been recognised as the ‘best in class’.

Another reason for our success is that we are continuously innovative in bringing new solutions to our client’s problems, every year we are investing in R&D and we have developed several service solutions, such as Quantum DrivecCare, that have now become nationally recognised solutions. Furthermore, we are a company of engineers and experts, working across all industries and therefore understand the problems our clients face each day in each of those industries and strive to always provide solutions to their problems, often transferring new practices and innovations from one industry to another.

As well as delivering the right solutions to our clients, we have also invested heavily in order to ensure that they truly receive an all-round pleasurable experience.

We do this in different ways every day, and we encourage all of our employees to do this by giving them the autonomy required to deliver excellent service as standard, We do this as we firmly believe that we have set a level of customer service and technical expertise

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In our sector, we have seen year on year growth in motor and drive sales, but it is the huge uptake on temporary rental and long term lease of variable speed drives that is taking the industries in which we work by storm. This presents a particularly exciting opportunity because it is a service that is unique to Quantum Controls in the UK. Looking towards the future, we will be opening even more service centres throughout the UK and expanding our Rental Division into Europe in 2016.

Company: Roadlink International Ltd Address: Strawberry Lane, Willenhall, West Midlands, WV13 3RL, United Kingdom Phone: +44(0)1902 636206 Email: sales@roadlink-international.co.uk

CV Braking Specialist of the Year

Roadlink International Ltd specialises in distributing commercial vehicle braking products in the UK and overseas.

We speak to the firm’s Chairman David Sedgley about the firm’s work and their success.

Established in 1982, Roadlink International Ltd has grown significantly over the years, whilst remaining independent, and now employs around 60 staff.

Roadlink’s business has also diversified over this time to include the distribution of a wider range of braking products for trucks, trailers and buses, and the remanufacturing of exchange brake shoes and exchange brake callipers.

To us, winning an award is a source of great pride for the company and its staff. We believe that Roadlink’s success is essentially down to the excellence of its products and service, being delivered by the whole Roadlink team. Awards such as this provide due recognition for successful businesses who are achieving the highest standards of excellence in their industry and we are proud to have received this prestigious accolade.

ufactured braking product in our industry, signified by the development of the SMMT remanufacturing committee, on which Roadlink is represented.

Alongside our industry partnerships, our firm holds a number of accreditations which shows its commitment to excellence in all areas. It holds the ISO 9001 quality standard and ISO 14001 environmental standard, together with the Investors in People (IiP) standard.

These standards help us to ensure our clients always receive a top quality service.

Another means by which we ensure this is by providing our staff with ongoing high quality training, which together with relevant industry knowledge and a strong focus on customer needs enables Roadlink to stay ahead. Exchange brake shoes also meet the

Working within a technology driven, evolving industry such as ours means it is vital that we stay ahead of industry developments. We achieve this by maintaining close links with appropriate industry bodies such as SMMT (Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders) and IAAF (Independent Automotive Aftermarket Federation) both of which Roadlink is a member and to which it contributes through committee participation.

As well as enabling the company to remain at the forefront of industry developments, these partnerships also help to shape the future of our firm and remain on top of our industry.

One key development we have seen in our industry over recent years is that there has been a greater importance attached to and wider acceptance of reman-

44 Corporate Vision UK Corporate Excellence Awards 2015

‘Brake Assured’ quality standard. It is essential when remanufacturing and distributing safety critical products such as CV braking products, that as at Roadlink, stringent standards of excellence are maintained.

Therefore, we have developed a philosophy within our firm: ‘to provide the customer with the best possible products and service’. Listening to what customers want from us is key and a continuous improvement philosophy lies behind all aspects of product quality and customer service.

Looking to the future, Roadlink is currently engaging in an expansion programme, which going forward will enable a significant increase in production of remanufactured CV braking product.

Company: RS Fleet Installations Phone: 01675 624000 Website: http://www.rsfleet.co.uk/ Address: Units 1-3 Roman Way Coleshill, North Warwickshire, B46 1HG Email: info@rsconnect.com

Technology Innovator Award 2015

RS Connect is the go to collaborator for businesses looking to integrate telemetry into their commercial vehicle proposition, insurers entering the UBI market or organisations re-engineering their existing telematics offering.

RS Connect offers insurance telematics and fleet installations services to the world’s leading insurers and fleet management companies, including RAC, Tesco, Insure the Box and Octo Telematics but their leading edge rests in their use of technology in data collation, transfer and communication in collaboration with their customers.

RS Connect has a wealth of engineering knowledge and unsurpassed experience in project designing the installation of telematics equipment, cameras and associated equipment but it is their use of intelligent technology that has earned them their deserving place as the top solutions provider to the broad client set that the firm are proud to serve.

Collaboration and partnerships are at the core of their ethos, and as such they are supported in their business by strong strategic partnerships with other complimentary service providers enabling the firm to provide a complete solution to their clients, whether around training and education, product development and manufacture or software and technology.

“It means working in close collaboration with our customers to anticipate their needs and then exceeding their expectations. It means being at the forefront of assisting our clients in shaping a developing market by leading on market evolution.”

The company’s use of technology to continually drive improvement and efficiency is impressive. From the state of the art multi lingual communications hub at their head office right through to web services based commissioning, RS Connect are lauded by their customers as professional, knowledgeable and dependable.

Working alongside their dedicated team RS Connect has handpicked its core management team from complimentary backgrounds to deliver a rounded, dy-

“We can only operate alongside the customers we work with by being better than the rest of the market and anticipating and driving change. This means delivering exceptional service both to our customers and their end users.” says Lea Hodson, managing director.

“Staying ahead of a fast changing market means recruiting and training the best engineers, whether by direct recruitment or through our academy and recruiting the best software engineers and developers and constantly evolving our technology platform.

UK Corporate Excellence Awards 2015 Corporate Vision 45

namic and stable environment in which the business can flourish. The management team is supported by an operational board across the core functions of the business who are challenged with managing continual operational change and implementation of best practice.

Moving forward, there are some exciting projects in the works for the firm. Since closing a multi million BP private equity deal with Beech Tree Private Equity to invest in geographical and product expansion, the company has continued to push its domestic and global expansion with footprints across most of Europe, and into South East Asia. This expansion will ensure that they are able to provide their quality solutions to more customers around the globe as we move into 2016.

Company: ChangeGroup International Name: Sacha Zackariya Email: sacha.zackariya@changegroup.com Address: 1 Ely Place, London EC1N 6RY Telephone: +44 (0)2036758200

Best for Employee Diversity & Equal Opportunity

ChangeGroup is a leading provider of retail foreign exchange with its headquarters in London. With global operations spread over four continents, ChangeGroup has served over 25 million customers since its inception in 1992.

We got in touch with Sacha Zackariya, CEO of ChangeGroup, to find out more.

Alongside providing foreign currency, ChangeGroup offer a variety of services including small remittances and high value international payments, ATMs with Dynamic Currency Conversion and Travel Money Online. Our focus is on the high end high profile segment of the travel money market, and therefore every business and leisure traveller is a potential customer to ChangeGroup.

As for the award, we believe that it reflects our commitment to excellence and our passion for customer service and our diverse team of ChangeGroupers.

We owe this success to the quality and dedication of our front line sales staff along with the continued

We really pride ourselves on the work we do, and there are a number of measures we undertake to ensure that we remain at the forefront of our industry.

Fundamental to our success is the focus on our five core values, and we expect each and every one of our employees to uphold them. These include being trustworthy, engaging, achieving, caring and innovative.

This aspiration will help ChangeGroup continue to improve and develop in our industry.

We work in a highly competitive sector, where it is essential to innovate and we benchmark ourselves against only the best in the industry. In doing this, we like to think outside the box and constantly improve and enhance our front line services. We believe that our most distinguishing feature is that we are quick to react to changing market conditions and always adopt an innovative approach to any challenges that come our way.

In terms of the culture of our company, diversity and inclusivity are at the heart of everything we do. The ChangeGroup is a multi-cultural organisation employing over 80 nationalities promoting diversity and unity within it global operations in 13 different countries.

This diversity allows ChangeGroup to identify with, and provide appropriate services for its global clients.

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development of our people, processors and innovative systems. We also believe that this accolade provides us with a great opportunity to showcase our success within the industry as well as the work that has been done to uphold the company’s values and vision.

Company: R&B Group Name: Kevin Floyd – Head of Client Services Email: kevin.floyd@rbgroup.co.uk Web Address: www.rbgroup.co.uk Address: 14 Cobblestone Court, Hoults Estate, Walker Road, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 1AB Telephone: 0191 2763999

Sustained Excellence in Event Production

Over twenty three years we have built a solid reputation which has enabled us to become a ‘trusted adviser’ to the events sector and this continues to set us apart from other suppliers. As a result, clients know they can trust us with any aspect of their event including their sponsors, speakers and guests. We spoke to Kevin Floyd, Head of Client Services R&B Group, to find out the philosophy behind their success.

Another aspect of our business that makes us unique is there are not many “ full service event production suppliers”. We have thousands of items of AV equipment in our UK warehouses along with creative teams, scenic stage design and construction, video production and full production management including highly skilled staff who will create design led solutions with real impact.

R&B Group in recent years has also become well known for pushing the boundaries with projection mapping and making this technology available to the corporate sector and not just global brands. This technology enables high quality projection of images, animation and film onto 3D surfaces like castles, buildings, vehicles and any 3D models.

Additionally, we have a monthly staff recognition scheme and all staff vote. This rewards excellence and positive attitude for an individual or group of individuals. This scheme then feeds into our annual staff update meeting and end of year GRAFTA awards.

As for this award, we believe that this is well deserved recognition for Directors Antony Crerar and Barry Fox who have worked together for over 20 years. They are wholeheartedly passionate about delivering high quality spectacular events and above all, they have created some great customer relationships that last.

Antony and Barry’s passion percolates through the

In order to produce a great event, we find that excellent two way communication is vital to success – after all, events are all about communicating our clients vision! When organising an event, the client’s R&B project manager ensures that the event brief is interpreted correctly and creative research is undertaken in order to deliver visual concepts and accurately costed proposals. Furthermore we proactively request client feedback which can often provide valuable insight and as a two way process helps to improve their next event.

In terms of our ethos, R&B Group actively promote a team culture by involving staff in ‘creative meetings’ regardless of their role and always without fail recognise staff birthdays and work anniversaries. A family spirit exists through the directors’ transparent dealings and we adopt an honest approach to all business matters and desire to make work both fun and rewarding.

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whole organisation and all staff aspire to bring that same passion to the work they do.

A true testament to the passion and positivity shown

by Antony is that he continues to contribute and motivate us all. Despite being diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour Antony, known as Ant to most people still inspires us to produce awesome events.

Looking towards the future, we aim for another twenty plus years of satisfied clients and creative events that inspires and wow audiences around the world.

Company: Working Capital Partners Ltd Name: Perry Burns Email: perry.burns@workingcapitalpartners.co.uk Web Address: www.workingcapitalpartners.co.uk Address: Buckingham House, 45 Vivian Avenue, Hendon, London, NW4 3XA Telephone: 020 8203 6500

Best for Selective Invoice Finance

Working Capital Partners Ltd Working Capital Partners Ltd specialises in assisting businesses with working capital, invoice finance and purchase order funding. We speak to Perry Burns from the firm about their work and how they are changing the market for smaller business funding.

Since we were founded in 2010, Working Capital Partners has completely reengineered small business funding by offering selective invoice finance and purchase order finance that provides affordable and flexible working capital to smaller businesses. Most factoring companies insist on financing the whole debtors’ ledger and are usually not interested in financing confirmed forward orders.

more closely with them and develop a strong working relationship, enabling us to tailor our services to their individual needs.

However, at WCP we focus on offering complete flexibility to our clients who choose which invoices to discount as and when needed. This approach has helped our firm to grow rapidly in recent years, lending more than ÂŁ80m to businesses in practically every sector. We pride ourselves on providing a fast, efficient but personal service and on making critical funding decisions quickly.

As a firm we focus single-mindedly on understanding the SME market and have tailored new and innovative products to suit the needs of a variety of clients. Our clients come to us with a range of problems leading to cash flow difficulties. Whether it is a surprise new order, a supplier suddenly changing or withdrawing credit or even a problem with HMRC; we have developed systems so that we can be responsive and proactive to provide the most suitable solution quickly efficiently and with the minimum of fuss and paperwork. With our quick response time, simple three step process and ability make funding decisions in two hours, we can overcome these challenges and offer a fast and reliable service to our clients.

As a small company ourselves, we are able to understand the determination and passion our clients have for their own businesses and this allows us to work

48 Corporate Vision UK Corporate Excellence Awards 2015

Moving forward, we are keen to grow with our clients and continue to help small businesses. This will assist with our overall goal, to become an integral part of SME funding and a company that businesses look up to and want to work with as their funding partners.

Company: Yorkshire MESMAC Web Address: mesmac.co.uk Address: 22-23 Blayds Yard, Leeds LS1 4AD Telephone: 0113 2444 209

Best HIV Testing Service

Yorkshire MESMAC is one of the oldest and largest sexual health organisations in the country and is dedicated to HIV prevention and health promotion with gay, bisexual and men who have sex with men, Black African communities and other groups most at risk of poor sexual health. Tom Doyle opens our eyes to this unique and dedicated organisation and the vital work they do.

Yorkshire MESMAC is part of a group of services that include The BLAST! Project that works with young men and boys involved in or at risk of becoming involved in, sexual exploitation; and the OUR & Begin projects, social support agencies for people living with HIV, their families, friends and carers together with a number of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Trans (LGB&T) youth groups.

Alongside this we are always looking to broaden and deepen our health promotion offer to our communities, and will continue to work with them and for them as we move into 2016.

We offer a range of services including community HIV testing, support groups, counselling services, health promotion development and training to professional who want to ensure that their services are accessible and acceptable to marginalised communities.

The founding principles of our work are to always listen to our service users, hear what they say and act on this to ensure that our service always meets their needs.

We are always keen to innovate our services to meet the changing needs of today’s society. One key example of this is the introduction of our unique ‘Click & Collect’ HIV testing service, which supports the user’s anonymity and makes our services easier to use in the modern technological society.

In the future there are a number of developments, both in our industry and with regards to our service users which we are keen to adapt to.

As new community based HIV tests are increasingly coming on the market, HIV home sampling is becoming more of an option and we are working harder to introduce more innovative ways to support our users as the market evolves and their needs change.

UK Corporate Excellence Awards 2015 Corporate Vision 49

Celebrating 30 years and still growing!

Semefab operates 3 wafer fabs on its Glenrothes site, supplying silicon wafer foundry, probe tested die and packaged electronic devices and sensors to customers around the world.

The operation supports a broad technology base in IC’s, Discrete semiconductors and MEMS Sensors. Usually our customers require custom processing.

Our teams are expert at inducting and if necessary optimising existing processes to run at high throughput with excellent probe and final test yields.

250 million die/devices and over 70 per cent of fabricated product is exported each year.

Competitive, Flexible and Responsive Committed to Continuous Improvement in Operational Efficiency and Environmental Impact IC’s Discrete Semis MEMS 2015 UK Corporate Excellence Awards WINNER –‘Best for Electronic Device Fabrication’

Silicon Foundry, Global Partnerships

For further information contact: Allan James T: +44 (0)1592 630630 Mobile/Cell: +44 (0)7710 779697 E: allan.james@semefab.com W: www.semefab.com