View The Latest Issue
Official Media Sponsor
C&M is published by
BICSc awards dinner guests raise £1800
Guests at The British Institute of Cleaning Science (BICSc) annual awards dinner, which took place on 22 September, raised £1800 for the Breast Cancer Campaign. Money was raised from a charity raffle held during the awards evening, alongside a generous gift donation from the ISSA Foundation Fund.
Companies which donated prizes for the raffle included headline sponsor of the evening, LCC Support Services. Additional raffle prizes were donated by Miele GB, Unger UK, Cleanwise Training and Management, Interserve, ERB Training, UK Special Risks, KUSCO, Zenith Hygiene Group, Metro Clean of Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council, Premiere Products, Bees Knees florists, PR and marketing firm and organiser of the awards, Ceris Burns International, and the awards venue, the Marriott Forest of Arden Hotel.
Breast Cancer Campaign’s mission is to beat breast cancer by funding innovative world-class research to understand how breast cancer develops, leading to improved diagnosis, treatment, prevention and cure. This was the charity of choice of outgoing BICSc chair, Lynn Webster.
www.bics.org.uk
Chatsworth stages IT seminar
Chatsworth Computers, author of Merlin Business Software, reports that its IT seminar at the Casa Hotel, Chesterfield on Wednesday 12 October was a great success. The event offered local businesses and existing customers the opportunity to meet with Chatsworth and its vendor partners to explore the latest hot topics in IT.
The theme of the seminar was how to help businesses run more efficiently and profitably during the current economic climate, with investment in modern IT solutions.
A number of guest speakers addressed the seminar. Firstly, Chris Bones of Fujitsu UK spoke on the subject of cloud computing and explored the various services available to businesses looking to benefit from this technology. Following on, Chatsworth’s own senior networking specialist, John Barber, gave a presentation regarding the benefits of the use of virtualisation technologies to help companies reduce their business IT cost and provide affordable ‘high-availability’ computing solutions where downtime cannot be considered.
Bright Masih, sales director of Sales-i, gave an overview of how his company’s sales intelligence software solutions can highlight and unlock sales opportunities within ERP software data, with tremendous results.
The benefits of a complete business software solutions over bolt- together ‘off the shelf’ packages were outlined by Chatsworth’s sales and marketing director, Ashley Jones, whilst a presentation of the company’s wide range of hosted business services was given by Chatsworth’s engineering department manager, Martin Williams.
The final presentation was given by Steve Holdstock, managing director of LeaseMaster Ltd, on the benefits of financing capital IT purchases, allowing business to take the benefit of the technology from day one whilst spreading the cost over a manageable period and avoiding the use of existing lines of credit.
www.chatsworth.co.uk
Success at Ayrshire Business Awards
Scottish based cleaning and security service provider, Sercon Support Services Ltd, is celebrating after recently scooping the award for Excellence in Customer Service at the Ayrshire Business Awards, where the company was also announced as a finalist in the Outstanding Performing Business over 25 Employees category.
The awards ceremony, which looks to celebrate the success in business across the Ayrshire region, recognised Irvine-based company Sercon for its focus on customer service and care. This success followed the company’s award entry and shortlisted presentation to the panel, which asked the company to demonstrate its customer service objectives and strategy, business performance, customer care activities, staff development plans and show how this has driven business growth.
In response to external market pressures, Sercon restructured its business and refocused the company’s activities around ‘service excellence’ in order to differentiate Sercon from its competitors and offer a better service to its clients by developing a service excellence programme. The programme was designed to provide key customer care training, as well as awarding employees that deliver excellent service through the Sercon Service Star award scheme.
A commitment to new software was also paramount in the objectives of customer care delivery, through the implementation of helpdesk software - NetHelpdesk - a bespoke ticketing system which allows the company to track and log all calls and enquiries to the company. The software was developed by the company’s IT partner Microtech Support - an IT support company based in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire.
Lorraine Stevely, managing director, said: “I am delighted. It is an affirmation of Sercon’s vision to deliver service excellence and to exceed our clients expectations at all times. We have worked hard this year to identify a strategy to continually improve our customer service through our clients and employee engagement. We have achieved this via new software, identifying advocates of service excellence in our company through our Sercon Service Star scheme and an investment in customer service training. But we wouldn’t have achieved this without the excellent efforts and hard work of our on-site staff that are our key assets and are the forefront of our customer service every day.”
www.serconltd.co.uk
SYR distributor day at The Belfry
More than 50 distributors tested their golfing skills on the famous course before company chairman Scot Young demonstrated new products, including trolleys and mopping and wringer combos.
Among the items exclusively on show was Brushcraft, the innovative new mophead laundering system. Tremendous interest is already being shown in the product. In his presentation, Scot Young said the new products had been developed to tackle centuries-old faults in manual cleaning.
He added that the new ranges would set the market on fire and have a tremendous effect on the industry, which sees 100 million people worldwide actively engaged in wet mopping on a daily basis.
Loyalty distributors enjoyed a meal and prizes were presented to the winning golfers. These were:
Overall winners: Ian Logie and Steve Oulds of Intacare Hygiene Ltd.
Winner of the longest drive contest: Harry Wignall of Highgrove Cleaning and Support Services.
Nearest the pin joint winners: Dave Clark of Vanitorials Ltd and Tom English of MBS Wholesale Ltd.
For more details about the loyalty scheme please contact distributor sales director John Cook at SYR by emailing john.cook@syrclean.com.
ISSA to change the perception of cleaning
ISSA is launching a multi-faceted new initiative to help its members gain greater acceptance of the positive impact of cleaning and to assist them in navigating the ongoing challenges facing the industry.
The association’s new position is meant to reflect the forward direction its members are taking each day to provide state-of-the-art cleaning processes and products and protect public health. This focus is reflected in a range of new services as well as ISSA’s new logo and tagline - Advancing clean. Driving innovation’.
Ongoing market consolidations, cost pressures, complex environmental considerations, new product innovations, and increasing threats from pandemics and other health issues continue to reshape the scope and impact of the global cleaning industry. To help members address these issues, ISSA is rededicating its resources and expertise to more effectively educate the commercial market about the vital impact cleaning has on human health, the environment, and the bottom line.
The objective is to ensure facility decision makers take full advantage of the measurable impact cleaning can have on both their operational and financial success, and to ensure they - and the world - view cleaning not as an expense to be minimised, but as the vital investment it truly is.
Moreover, ISSA is improving upon the communications, tools, and advocacy its members rely on to help drive their business, stay on top of the latest trends and innovations, and best serve their customers and employees.
These initiatives include ‘The value of clean calculator’ which launched in October 2011 and which will measure the impact cleaning has on critical areas such as occupant productivity, absenteeism, asset preservation, and sustainability. By using this tool, ISSA members will be able to show facility managers the unrealised savings achieved through proper cleaning, justify necessary new investments and win increased appreciation of the true value cleaning can provide an organisation.
Also launched in October 2011, initially in the US, is Transpare which is the first online platform designed to help purchasers easily evaluate cleaning products using a comprehensive and transparent range of environmental, safety and health attributes. Users will be able to easily identify what comprises a product’s overall environmental profile and ensure that these qualities are in line with a purchaser’s own specific sustainability needs. Manufacturers will also be able to leverage Transpare to better promote their products’ innovative environmental, safety, and health attributes.
“Cleaning has a direct impact on human health, the environment as well as return on investment,” said Keith Baker, ISSA’s director of European services. “Our new brand identity speaks to this far reaching impact, and we are taking concrete steps through the introduction of new tools, services, and information that will enable ISSA and its members to change the way the world views cleaning. The cleaning industry is evolving, and ISSA is determined to stay ahead of the trends and better serve its members.”
www.issa.com
MITIE wins inaugural Co-operative Food Award
MITIE has won an award at the inaugural Co-operative Food Property Awards charity dinner. The award for Supplier of the Year in the Environmental, Cleaning and Waste category is in recognition of MITIE’s efforts in working for Co-operative Food across the country.
The awards ceremony, which included over £200,000 being presented to Mencap and Enable Scotland, was held at Lancashire County Cricket Club and was hosted by TV personality Vernon Kay. Also in attendance were celebrities John Bishop and Willie Thorne.
The event saw David Purdy, MITIE’s operations director, retail services, picking up the award from snooker ace Willie Thorne. He said: “Our retail team has worked really hard for the Co-operative Food property estate over the last two years and this award recognises the efficiencies and improved working practices that we have introduced. We are delighted to be recognised in this way by Co- operative Food.”
www.mitie.com
