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		Winter 2007/08	trade suppliers of washroom and cleaning products

www.futures-supplies.co.uk

020 8689 2072

contents

welcome
marketing matters
changing lives
rising stars
on your bike
cssa - a guide to quality and reliability
cssa - chairman appointed
delivering customer service excellence
the greener cleaners

welcome

A warm welcome to this winter edition of our newsletter.

Our cover story illustrates recognition for our green marketing campaign with the accolade EAST ‘Green Marketing’ Award. Demonstrating our commitment to getting the ‘Green’ message into the market place, the award validates the importance of marketing in developing client relationships as well as ensuring a clear brand message reaches our customers, enabling us to deliver our clients’ needs in terms of sustainable services and product requirements.

Read about the success of our ‘employability project’ and the progress of our three young people, their successful integration into the workplace and the Futures Supplies team along with the story behind the scenes in our logistics department, what sets us apart as a company and how we ensure we continue to deliver Service, Value, Quality and Reliability to your door, with the added value of environmental consideration in everything we do.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone including our team here, partners and especially our valued customers for all their continued support over the past year in ensuring our sustained success and wish everyone a very happy and prosperous 2008.

Mandie Kemp
Managing Director

marketing matters

Andrew Hills and Tracey Holden

At the 2007 Environmental and Sustainable Technology (EAST) Awards, Futures Supplies successfully scooped a coveted ‘Green Marketing Award’. The prestigious national awards are open to entries from both the private and public sectors.

The event, held at the House of Lords brought together environmental leaders and industry providers of products and services to celebrate their environmental and sustainable technology solutions.

Judged by a panel of senior industry insiders headed by David Lemon, Environment Industries Commission, Futures Supplies was delighted to collect the ‘Green Marketing Award’ in recognition of its successful marketing influence encouraging not only customers, but also suppliers and their local community in the importance of ‘green’ issues.

The company successfully illustrated its environmental marketing contribution in enabling its clients to reduce their environmental impact through the availability of green products, information on sustainability and its environmental activities through its regular newsletter and on going press campaign.

Tracey Holden who collected the award along with Andy Hills, Futures Supplies Green Champion said, “This award was important to us because it recognises that the company’s influence over others in relation to environmental issues really matters.”

changing lives

Futures Supplies, committed to supporting young people in the community, not only provides regular financial contributions to the funding of ‘The Croydon Commitment Brokerage’ but works closely with Croydon Social Services to demonstrate its commitment to the local community and future generations.

Croydon Commitment is a movement of businesses committed to working together to improve their economic, social and environmental impact on the borough’s community. The initiative is based upon the idea that companies have a greater impact on key community needs, as well as realising the business benefits of an active Corporate Social Responsibility policy, by working collaboratively rather than independently.

Continuing to support young disadvantaged people by providing 12-week work placements enabling them to gain valuable work experience whilst building their confidence and self-esteem, Futures Supplies has successfully provided three permanent positions as a result of this initiative.

Jason Lea and Luke Smith employed as General Warehouse Assistants are crucial to the smooth running of the business, providing driver support and assisting in picking and loading. Solange Mbiya, as a result of her hard work during her 12-week work placement is now a permanent member of the administration team employed as a General Office Assistant.

More details on The Croydon Commitment and its projects can be found by visiting www.thecroydoncommitment.co.uk

Mandie Kemp with Luke, Solange and Jason.

rising stars

At the glittering award evening celebrating South London’s environmental rising stars, Futures Supplies received a Gold Envibe Award for the third consecutive year recognising the longevity of its environmental project.

Envibe is a government-funded organisation that was set up to help businesses improve their environmental efficiency through a network of support organisations and recognises companies through a tiered award scheme to identify environmental excellence and good practice.

To be recognised for yet another year of progress and hard work illustrates the true fortitude of the company’s environmental and CSR project and is an outstanding accolade and firm recognition for all the company’s efforts.

For more information, go to www.futures-supplies.co.uk/awards.asp

Mandie Kemp and Andrew Hills are good as gold at this years’ Envibe awards ceremony.

on your bike

Futures’ staff get to grips with handling the company’s bikes around town. L-R: Majdi Backit, Everton Simms, Andrew Hills, Jason Lea.

Futures Supplies already recognisable Travel Brand logo, was developed to give focus to its travel plan promoting sustainable travel initiatives to its personnel as well as the community.

Encouraging its employees to use green sustainable travel initiatives, the company has purchased four company bikes to enable staff to cycle to work and has ensured safe and confident cycling through cycle training delivered by the Institute of Advanced Motoring.

Held at the workplace so that local conditions could be taken into account, the trainer took staff through their paces in ‘Cycle Check’, covering the general safety of the bike, control, braking, gear changing and signalling and ‘Cycle Ride’ focusing on cycling safely in traffic enhancing the cyclist’s sense of security through assertive positioning on the road and awareness of other road users and pedestrians.

One of the participants, Andrew Hills said, “I found the course really interesting and extremely useful. It was a great refresher and taught me to be less defensive when riding.” Car sharing and use of the Croydon tram link system is encouraged by the company to reduce costs and promote a healthy lifestyle and Futures Supplies is now encouraging regular home working, having purchased laptop computers and installed broadband links.

If you would like to organise a cycle training session for your own staff, visit the Institute of Advanced Motorings’ website where you can find more information www.iam.org.uk/cycling

The Futures Travel Brand logo was developed to give focus to its travel plan.

cssa - a guide to quality and reliability

The CSSA is far more than a trade association – it is a guide to quality and reliability in the UK cleaning and support services market. Its dedication to training, marketing and the representation of its members' interests has already made it one of the most respected trade organisations in the country.

To find out more about the CSSA, visit the trade associations page on our website:

cssa - chairman appointed

Douglas Cooke, Managing Director of Principle Cleaning Services Ltd has been appointed Chairman of the Cleaning and Support Services Association after a year in the role of Vice Chairman. His appointment was announced at the CSSA 40th anniversary dinner.

To find out more about the CSSA, visit the trade associations page on our website:

delivering customer service excellence

service	quality	value	reliability
Delivering the service to the customer’s door is key to customer satisfaction. Liveried vehicles arriving with well presented, trained and experienced drivers in recognisable uniforms with assistants to help store the goods away, sets Futures Supplies aside and provides customers with the confidence of service excellence. Underpinning the company values along with the rest of the team are two assistants Jason and Luke providing daily support in picking, loading and assisting drivers in delivering service.	Ensures the quality of the product arriving is fit for purpose and the customers’ requirements through its arrival at Futures Supplies’ warehouse facilities in Croydon to its arrival at the customer’s door, is key to customer’s overall satisfaction. Responsible for the smooth running of the warehouse and ensuring regular servicing of all vehicles, Majdi books in and checks all goods in ensuring strict stock rotation whilst managing his team to deliver quality products to Futures Supplies’ valued customers.	Providing value means ensuring goods are delivered to the door efficiently making use of up to date technologies across the whole operation, Futures Supplies’ delivery team Everton, Graham and Jo are committed to the company’s ethos to deliver service excellence. Making sure that all deliveries go out to customers complete and on time is a reflection of tight management controls as well as a trained highly motivated team saving valuable time and resources and adding real value.	Committed to dependability, the team provides reliable, accurate deliveries assisted by satellite navigation and a vehicle tracking system which presents the up to the minute location of any vehicle on the fleet. This ensures the customer peace of mind that their delivery will arrive when Futures Supplies say it will. With a proven track record and the recognition of its already green credentials, Futures Supplies’ Transport team understand different customer perspectives in relation to reliability and appreciate that understanding individual customers’ values, beliefs and expectations is key to delivering customer service excellence.

Working to ensure the success of any business, there is always a team working tirelessly in the background and at Futures Supplies this no exception. The transport team assisting in delivering customer satisfaction are as committed to the company’s ethos to deliver service, quality, value, reliability and sustainability as are the front line sales and administration team.

Here we introduce the team and their roles in delivering you, the customer, service excellence.

the greener cleaners

Established for over sixteen years, London-based Principle Cleaning Services Ltd has proved the consistency of its high quality office cleaning and cleaning support by winning major national industry awards for five years running.

Futures Supplies is delighted to work with like-minded companies in delivering environmental improvements and its launch of Ecover products earlier this year saw Principle Cleaning Services quick off the mark in rolling out the use of Ecover environmentally friendly cleaning products throughout its contracts.

Principle will be using Ecover ecological cleaning products in client premises including prestigious buildings such as Shakespeare’s Globe International, Cancer Research UK, Bank of New York and City University.

Working together with the Futures Supplies team to ensure a smooth launch, Principle Cleaning is already playing its part in helping to protect London’s environment with the use of eco-friendly vehicles and further developing a strong ecologically friendly strategy as part of its work towards an ISO 14001 accreditation.

“Ecover products further endorses our environmental commitment and we will continue to look for innovative sustainable solutions as a way of helping the environment and supporting our customer green procurement requirements,” says Douglas Cooke, Managing Director.

Marco Silva, the company’s ‘green representative’ is currently driving Principle’s other environmental initiatives forward which include the use of microfibre cloths to cut down on the use of chemicals and the reduction of paper though the company’s paperless office regime, including scanning in documentation and the recycling of unwanted paper.

Trials on home working to cut down on unnecessary travel are already underway and the use of bottled water has been replaced by the use of filters for tap water.

Principle Cleaning has also recently re-launched its corporate branding through a new logo designed to reflect the company’s passion and commitment to environmental issues.

More information on Principle Cleaning can be found at its website www.principlecleaning.com

More information on Ecover products can be found at on the Ecover page on our website

Marco Silva – Prnciple’s
green representative