Granby Marketing Services

News

Contract Pack 2009

Members of staff from Granby Marketing Services recently exhibited at the 2009 easyfairs Contract Packing Event. The trade fair took place on the 11^th and 12^th of February and was held at the NEC Arena in Birmingham. Typical services on show at the exhibition included gift packing, hand collation, shrink wrapping, flow wrapping, specialist packaging, warehousing and distribution. The Image right shows a range of samples that the Granby Team has previously worked on including shrink-wrapped multipacks and hand collated hampers. These items were on show at the event to draw attention to our co-packing capabilities. Sales & Marketing Director Stewart Oxley stated:

"This is the first year we have exhibited at the Contract Packing Show and the initial leads look very promising. Already less than one week since the event, we have submitted one cost proposal and have a client visiting Blackburn in early March"

CallNorthWest - GMS shortlisted in CNW Awards

Granby Marketing Services has recently been announced as a finalist in the Contact Centre of the Year (under 50 seats) in the Call North West awards, which recognise, highlight and reward 'excellence' in contact centres.

Granby owes it's place in the final to it's commitment to the highest standards of customer service, investment in the bespoke reporting system SCOPe as well as the demonstration of proven employee retention.

For additional information on inbound and outbound call centre services visit GranbyTalk.com

Billy Doyle Memorial Garden

Granby employees have constructed a heather garden in remembrance of their former colleague Billy Doyle. Billy, the friendly Scotsman, sadly passed away in November last year. He had worked in the Security Department for 9 years. Brian Fort from Security said,

'Billy was liked by everyone. He taught me a great deal. Billy was a great father and was extremely professional at his job.'

Billy Doyle will be remembered by everyone at Granby.

Christie's Charity

Following the sale of old PCs, Granby is pleased to announce that £200 has been raised and donated to Christie's. Christie's is our selected charity for 2008. Many thanks go to James and the I.T. team for sorting this out.

International Direct Marketing Fair

The Granby Team is to make an appearance at the upcoming IDMF event. The event is held at Earls Court 2, London from the 29^th of April to the 1^st of May 2008.

Virgin Trains Testimonial

Human Resources Topics

On the 26^th of March, Granby is inviting staff to take part in a Grand Prix at Prestige Go-Karting in Colne, Lancashire. Each driver will take part in five heats whereby points are awarded. After the heat stages every driver will take part in a 6 lap semi-final. Once the semi-final has taken placed and the points have been counted, the top five drivers will battle it out in the final showdown. Good luck to all the drivers! For further Information please contact the HR department.

Well done to Del and Phil (pictured above) for completing their recent courses. Senior Account Manager Delyth Evans completed her level 3 award in first line management. Sales Executive Philip Newton also completed his course in Time and Priority Management. Both courses were undertaken at the East Lancashire Chamber of Commerce in Accrington. Del Said:

"I really enjoyed the course and fully recommend the Chamber of Commerce to anyone who is looking to develop their attributes"

"The facilities are great and the course leader made the experience fun and interactive. I shall be returning very soon for a course in successful selling"

Company Charity 2008

Well done to all Granby employees who took part in the Easter Egg raffle. In all we helped raise £108 for Christie's - our chosen charity for 2008.

New Business Win Sees Granby Tackling Childhood Obesity

The MEND Programme is a fun, effective and practical lifestyle solution focused on families with overweight or obese children and will be working with MEND to manage stock and collate and distribute kits to co-ordinators across the UK.

Gil Bailey, Deputy Portfolio Manager at MEND said - "We're very much looking forward to working with Granby. Their experience and can do ethos really fits well with us and I have no doubt that their Scope platform will enable us to manage our stock in a more efficient way. It's great that we've found a partner that can continue to work with us as the MEND Programme grows."

Human Resources Topics

Well done to Ian Hill for passing his first CIMA exam on Monday the 11th of February 2008 - The Fundamentals of Management Accounting.

Congratulations to Mary Sumner, who has completed and passed her NVQ level 3 in Business Administration.

Company Charity 2008

The chosen company charity for 2008 is Christie's Hospital Appeal. The proceeds of any fundraising will be donated to Christie's.

All the money which would usually have been spent on Christmas cards for clients, has been passed on to Christie's. All Granby clients will receive a Christmas email instead of a card.

Tales From The Frontline

Granby Marketing Services Managing Director Stephen Bentley talks to the Telegraph about the recent Postal Strikes

Human Resources Topics

Ian Hill will be commencing his studies with CIMA(Chartered Institute of Management Accountants) in Jan 2008 (www.cimaglobal.com).

The Following employees have been signed up for training programmes in the near future:

Yvette Jameson, Alan Witchell and Linda Saunders have completed their St.John Ambulance training which took place from Monday the 14th of January until Thursday the 17th of January. The official granby first aiders are:

Brian Fort
Julie Gallagher
Yvette Jameson
Alan Witchell
and Linda Saunders
(www.sja.org.uk)

We are pleased to announce that Stewart Houghton commenced employment with Granby on Wednesday the 23rd of January as Maintenance.

A big thank you to everyone who joined in with the fancy hat day held in November 2007. We raised £100 which was donated to Children in Need (www.bbc.co.uk/pudsey)

Congratulations to Kath Sumner, who won employee of the quarter for July, August and September 2007. Kath was selected due to her hard work in the Small Volumes Unit.

Granby Marketing Services Opens Stansted Office As Part Of Expansion Plans

Granby continues its expansion with the opening of its first regional sales office at on the Hertfordshire / Essex border. The office will be headed up by the recently appointed Sales Marketing Director, Stewart Oxley, and marks the first phases of a new sustainable business model that will bolster the company's annual turnover by at least 10% over the course of 2008.

The new office will focus on developing new client acquisition activity and will serve as an important regional hub for the company. The Stansted office was strategically chosen for its excellent transportation links and its close proximity to other major business centres.

Stephen Bentley, Chief Executive at Granby said: "The Stansted office is situated in an ideal location to service the South of England. Its proximity to London presents fantastic new business opportunities and will play an important part in the expansion of Granby. The decision was taken to locate the office in Stansted for the ease of access utilising to the strong transport infrastructure whilst maintaining our competitive operational costs in Blackburn. The best of both worlds for our clients."

Stewart Oxley, Sales and Marketing Director at Granby said, "This development is a fantastic opportunity to give ourselves a true national presence. I am looking forward to growing this facility to its true potential and to that end we will be recruiting additional sales/business development staff in the next month."

Sainsburys Active Kids

Following another successful year for Active Kids, Sainsbury's have contracted Granby for the 2008 cycle. This is Granby's 3rd successive year of managing the logistics that support the activity.The following services are utilised:

Rob Crumbie (Former Head of Sponsorship, Sainsbury's) believes that the relationship between Sainsbury's & Granby is continuing to develop. Year after year lessons have been learnt with further improvements being put into place. Hopefully, schools, guides & scout groups will continue to have a fantastic experience when participating with the Active Kids scheme.

Human Resources Topics

Congratulations to the following employees for successful completion of the below educational courses:

Congratulations to Delyth Evans for completing the ISP Diploma and Hannah Platts for completing the ISP Certificate.

Congratulations to Paul Albin, who won employee of the quarter for April, May and June 2007. Paul was chosen due to his hard work in the Packing and Production areas.

Granby joins the BCMPA

Granby has joined the British Contract Manufacturers and Packers Association (BCMPA). Established in 2001, the BCMPA now boasts over 85 members who provide a spectrum of contract manufacturing and packing services to the growing number of FMCG companies that are now choosing to outsource these functions. Granby’s expertise in quality controlled high volume collation, packing and distribution has been utilised for several years by clients including Kimberly-Clark and Unilever.

Membership of the BCMPA will give Granby the opportunity to promote our services to a wider customer base, whilst providing prospective clients with the re-assurance that we meet the professional standards required of members.

Welcoming Granby to the BCMPA, Chief Executive Rodney Steel said “We are delighted to have Granby on board as a new member. They passed our accreditation with flying colours, clearly demonstrating their ability to provide an excellent secondary packing service to the sector.”

National Curriculum Tests successfully delivered for National Assessment Authority

For a third successive year under the current contract, Granby has completed the massive Key Stage Test collation and distribution project on time and to the highest level of accuracy ever achieved. With over 30 million individual sheets received from the printers, around 1.7 million bespoke packs were produced for 24,000 schools throughout the UK under stringent security within a mere 5 weeks. Demanding meticulous quality control and the most exacting production planning, the exercise was completed to a staggering 99.9% accuracy level.

Granby wins European Parliament contract

Granby has been awarded a 4 year contract by the UK Office of the European Parliament to handle the storage and distribution of European Parliament publications, promotional items and exhibition stands and materials. With a sizeable storage requirement and a highly variable collection of stock items to manage, we are also providing a bespoke web order portal for easy direct order placement by authorised European Parliament officers and a complete on-line suite of real time reports which has been welcomed in London and Brussels alike.

Daniel Ractliffe, Head of Public Affairs, UK Office of the European Parliament, commented: “Working with a partner such as Granby who is developing a reputation in public sector, high volume response handling, is an exciting prospect and one which I’m confident will be valuable to the work undertaken by our UK Office.”