42 | Tees Business
Serving the Teesside Business Community | 43
/ STOCKTON NEWS
Wynyard firm celebrates 10
years with 33% sales boost
Hospitality Guaranteed,
launched by Amanda Jackson
and Victoria Brunton, has
increased its team to 18 after
enjoying a turnover boost.
Workwear firm in
great shape thanks
to staff benefits
By Martin Walker
A
Tees-based workwear supply firm
is reaping the rewards of several
staff benefits – including gym
subsidies.
M.I. Supplies, based in
Thornaby, pays £240-a-year per employee
towards gym memberships as well as
offering a number of other incentives.
Staff also benefit from a profit-share
scheme, private health care and a Bike to
Work initiative.
Managing director Alex Ingham believes
happy and healthy staff makes for a happy
and healthy business.
M.I. Supplies has enjoyed a staggering
205% growth in the last five years and
expects to achieve another record turnover
this year, up to £2.5m from £2.25m in 2015.
The firm, which moved from 3,000 sq ft
units to a new 8,000 sq ft unit at Willows
Court on Teesside Industrial Estate in
February last year, has just signed a new
three-year deal with European supermarket
giant Aldi, worth more than £3m.
“We’ve always worked with Aldi but we
re-negotiated a new deal with them which
started in July,” says Ingham.
“We’ll be supplying about 15,000 orders
over three years to 700 sites, and it gives
us stability to grow the business and help
support other areas of the business knowing
we have that work secured.
“The high quality work we put in with Aldi
is substantial and is reviewed weekly to keep
improving.”
Ingham is adamant that the staff
incentives offered by M.I. Supplies is a major
contribution towards the firm’s impressive
growth.
There are obvious benefits to maintaining
a healthy workforce. By creating a positive,
safe and healthy environment for employees,
it can also increase morale and improve
employees’ work-life balance.
And statistics prove that healthier
employees are absent less often, while
healthy workers are more motivated to stay
in work, recover from sickness quicker and
are at less risk of long-term illness.
Three staff at M.I. Supplies are currently
taking advantage of the gym incentive admin assistant Sophie Tasker, who goes to
the CrossFit gym at the Northern Echo Arena
in Darlington, Warehouse Team manager Neil
Hodgson, who goes to Bannatyne’s, and
Warehouse Team member Callum Patton,
who also goes to CrossFit.
Ingham said: “Us contributing towards
their gym memberships isn’t going to make
them go to the gym, but it’s just to give them
that incentive.
“I firmly believe looking after your staff in
many different ways keeps them happy and
they also repay you with loyalty and hard
work.
“All our staff are in a profit-share scheme,
our wages are above the national living wage
and a number of staff are on hours to work
around their home lives.
“They also benefit from a private health
care scheme, which contributes towards
dental fees, opticians and physiotherapy, and
they’re entitled to 10 full sick days a year.
“As a result we get great buy-in from them.
In 10 years we’ve only had one person make
the decision to leave us and employees are
rarely off sick.
“How we look after the staff is a crucial
factor in the company’s growth.”
M.I. Supplies recently supported 12
W
M.I. Supplies managing director Alex Ingham (left)
with warehouse team member Callum Patton,
warehouse team manager Neil Hodgson and admin
assistant Sophie Tasker, outside the firm’s premises
on Teesside Industrial Estate in Thornaby.
employees to take part in a nine-month
Continuous Improvement Development
Programme, which has resulted in all of them
achieving a NVQ Business Improvement
qualification.
The company collaborated with TACS,
which offers a wide range of qua lifications to
the engineering and manufacturing sectors,
to deliver the training programme designed
to improve quality, efficiency and delivery.
As well as staff development and
incentives, Ingham also believes another
big factor in his firm’s growth is down to its
fixed price promise, with some customers
now benefitting from fixed rates for up to 13
years.
He added: “No other company in the
industry has pricing promises like this, it
helps them enormously in planning their
budgets. Our competitors have stated it
can’t be done, but we keep working on
efficiencies in the business to pass on to our
customers.
“I am delighted and proud of our
achievements over the past 12 months and
the whole team are excited to see how
our new systems and servers can help us
exceed our goals and grow even more.”
M.I. Supplies now has a growing client
base consisting of more than 250 business
customers including the fire brigade, local
councils, engineering firms and charities,
while more than 26,000 customers have
ordered supplies from the company’s
website, and brands supplied by M.I. include
Sainsbury’s, Barbour, Lidl, Royal Mail and
Mercedes.
For more information about M.I.
Supplies go to www.misupplies.co.uk
ynyard Park-based accommodation,
conference and event management
specialist Hospitality Guaranteed
has marked its tenth anniversary by
announcing a 33% increase in sales for the
last year.
In addition, the firm has undertaken a
major recruitment drive to meet demand and
has boosted its staff numbers by 50% since
summer 2015, from 12 employees to 18.
These include two new apprentices, who
joined the company earlier this year.
Hospitality Guaranteed offers a
range of online solutions for corporate
event, conference and accommodation
management, including a ‘one stop shop’
system for bookings, plus a venue
finding service and support from
a dedicated team of hospitality
specialists.
The company developed a unique
bookings and management system
HG One Stop, which provides the
foundation for its online systems. These
include Conference Stop, an online venue
finding and conference management tool
and Apprentice Stop, a system that supports
businesses running apprentice or staff
residential programmes.
Launched from a home office in June 2006
by Amanda Jackson and Victoria Brunton,
Hospitality Guaranteed moved to a site in
Castle Eden in 2007 before locating to new
premises at Wynyard Business Park in 2013.
The company now works with more
than 2,000 conference and meeting venue
suppliers in the UK and has access to
more than 80,000 accommodation venues
worldwide
OFFICE BLOCK OPENS
AFTER RENOVATION
A newly renovated building in the heart of
Stockton officially opened to businesses
looking for a serviced office solution.
The Mayor of Stockton officially opened
the offices in a ceremony that included
representatives from Stockton Council and
local businesses.
Jeff Highfield, managing director for
Gloucester House, said: “We’re keen
to establish Stockton as a bustling
community campus with businesses from
all industries and Gloucester House is the
perfect building to cater for this vision.”
Gloucester House – which is located
on Church Road, and set in the historic
quarter of Stockton – boasts 42 modern
offices with exceptionally fast 500Mb
Internet access, free parking and a state of
the art InTouch telephone system.
LOCAL BUSINESSES
PUTT TO THE TEST AT
GOLF DAY
Tees firm recruiting
after £2m milestone
Shops celebrated at first
Castlegate retailer awards
Tees businesses helped to raise almost £10,000
at the Stockton Mayor’s 2016 Charity Golf Day.
The Mayor of Stockton, Councillor Ken
Dixon, hosted the popular fundraising event
at Wynyard Golf Club this summer, bringing
together 38 teams competing for the top prize.
The winners were Geoff Walsh, Jim Hibbert
and Rob Coulson from Wynyard Hall with Paul
Mackings as their team captain.
A raffle was also held to raise money towards
the final figure of £9,500.
The event was held to raise money for the
Mayor’s chosen charities Bowel Cancer UK,
Butterwick Hospice and Meningitis Now.
Stockton independent and national
businesses were celebrated at the
Castlegate Retailer Awards.
The shopping centre held its inaugural
Retailer Awards at Stockton Masonic Hall
to reward all their hardworking tenants and
give them a night to remember.
The stylish ceremony was jam-packed
with over 100 guests, as the winners of
nine categories took to the stage to accept
their awards.
The full list of winners were: The Stottie
Company (Best Marketing Initiatives),
B&M (Shoppers Award), Blue Corn Bakery
(Best Independent Retailer), Greggs
(Best National Retailer), Bodycare (Best
Safe Working), Faking It (Best Retail
Merchandiser), Greggs (Best Food Offer),
Hays Travel (Best Community Involvement)
and Boots (Overall Retailer of the Year).
Tees-based logistics expert InBond has
recruited new staff and apprentices after
securing new customers who have helped
push turnover beyond £2m.
Now the Stockton company is looking
to open a second Teesside site as
its management team eyes a “huge
opportunity for growth” across the region.
InBond has invested in new scanon-demand technology and new
racking within their 75,000 sq ft secure
warehouse.
Specialising in document management,
warehousing, transport and product
enhancement, InBond’s blue chip
customers include the NHS, Next and
Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies.
Having recently won a significant
contract with a major housing organisation,
they have increased their in-house team to
40 with the recruitment of five new staff
together with apprentices Cory Roberts
and Nicole Shaw.
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