An inspiring talk from Olympic gold medallist James Cracknell OBE, auctions, raffle and festivities at AFC Bournemouth’s Vitality Stadium has helped bring in valuable funds for AFC Bournemouth Cherries Community Fund, Dorset Mind, Lewis Manning Hospice Care, and MYTIME Young Carers.
Over 180 guests came along to enjoy our fifth year of festivities on 25 November, after a pause during Covid-19. The atmosphere at the event was fantastic, with a heart-warming speech by James Cracknell OBE, winner of two Olympic Gold Medals and six World Championship titles.
Auction prizes, which were donated by the charities and partners, included a training ground experience at AFC Bournemouth, signed Tyson Fury boxing gloves, a guided tour of Sky TV & Studio and a four-hour Sunseeker boat experience.
We’ve had some great feedback from partners and the charities:
Rob Mitchell, Commercial Director at AFC Bournemouth said: “Thank you to our official AFC Business partners, QuoStar, for hosting their Christmas charity lunch. We had a very entertaining afternoon and it was fantastic that almost £16,000 was raised for the chosen charities, including the Cherries Community Fund.”
Linda O’Sullivan, CEO at Dorset Mind said: “Your donation and support has been inspirational. Thank you super stars at QuoStar!”
Nicki Cluley of Lewis-Manning Hospice Care added: “It was absolutely fantastic seeing so many coming together and raising so much money for so many wonderful charities. We were especially delighted to raise £2200 thanks to the auction prize of the Sunseeker. You’ll all be pleased to know that our patients will getting the ‘Bags of Kindness’ this year thanks to your help.”
Tim Sills from MYTIME Young Carers said: “Absolutely amazing amount raised. Huge congratulations for how successful and brilliant the event was and thank you for your support as always.”
James Stelfox, Managing Director at QuoStar:
“It was a wonderful afternoon celebrating the start of the festive season with our partners. We would like to thank all the guests who supported the lunch and to everyone who helped us make a positive difference to local charities across our community.
The Dorset community is close to QuoStar’s heart, and we always do our best to give back to organisations that play a critical role for many people in the region. We’re extremely grateful that our annual lunch has once again raised an incredible amount that will help support the wonderful work of these charities over Christmas and all year round.”
You can relive the fun and festivities by watching our event highlight reel below or by visiting the event photo album on our Facebook page.
QuoStar has appointed three new senior members to its recently restructured board as part of the firm’s continued growth plans. Since the start of the year, 20 new people have joined the experienced QuoStar team, with the new additions set to bolster the company’s growth trajectory in 2022.
Andrew Forder, who has nearly 20 years’ experience in the IT service sector, joins QuoStar as Commercial Director. Previously Head of Sales at Nasstar, Andrew has a wealth of sales and account management experience in both mid-size and large UK organisations. He will be managing a dedicated team of enterprise sales individuals focussing on new business while maintaining QuoStar’s first-class client service.
Joining as Chief Technology Officer, Gavin Vickers will take charge of service delivery, IT project management and pre-sales processes. Well-respected industry veteran Gavin was previously Principal Consultant at Nasstar and brings unrivalled experience and capabilities in technical transformation to the role
QuoStar also welcomes Neil Clark as its first Cloud Services Director. Neil, who will lead the cloud services team, has designed, built, and managed numerous cloud platforms over the last decade. Neil previously held the position of Director of Cloud Services at GCI and Nasstar before moving to Head of Service at IT firm Transparity.
With the extended board, the team will continue to develop QuoStar’s position as a leading consultancy and service provider. QuoStar has started working with some well-known clients earlier this year and is continues to expand with a further product launch set for later this year.
The new board members will join David Clarke (Head of Security), Simon Gadsby (Chief Operating Officer), Chris White (Head of Consultancy) and Rebecca Montgomery (Head of Business Services), to work alongside QuoStar co-founders Robert Rutherford and James Stelfox.
James Stelfox, Managing Director of QuoStar, said: “As a team, we’re firm believers in bringing the right industry-leading expertise to each pillar of the business. With these new hires, we’re reiterating our commitment to deliver the best service possible to our clients, which is not only deeply personal to us but also unrivalled in the industry. We’re joined by some of the very best talents in their fields and are excited to leverage their expertise to drive forward their areas of the business.”
Robert Rutherford, CEO of QuoStar, added: “It is an exciting time for QuoStar and we’re delighted to welcome Gavin, Neil and Andrew to QuoStar’s board. Our firm has always been seen as a smaller, heavy hitting consultancy, but the time is now right for us to expand our team and make this transition, while retaining the real care, quality, and outcome-focused attention we have always been known for.”
Optimising manufacturing operations isn’t always easy, but it can be achieved with the right IT Solutions.
Manufacturing businesses are typically the best at seeking out efficiency and productivity in their operations, particularly on the shop-floor. However, many still do not apply the same LEAN principles to the rest of their operations, and that can mean the optimisation of processes is more challenging because of a lack of consistency throughout the business.
Systems and process analysis, and automation can be used throughout an organisation to drive down inefficiencies. IT is certainly an enabler of an efficient and well-performing optimisation.
As QuoStar’s Robert Rutherford was recently quoted in the Manufacturer: “Finance operations, for example, are often very bloated, but IT can facilitate outsourcing or offshoring, not only reducing costs but also allowing the process to become quickly automated to a good extent.”
What types of IT solutions and services can help with Optimising manufacturing operations?
Historically, manufacturers were always at the forefront of technology. This has in many ways meant that they experienced the falls and disappointments that come with testing cutting edge solutions. However, technology systems have also been driving results for manufacturers in some areas – such as IoT, cloud services and CRM.
Internet of Things (IoT)
The Internet of Things (IoT) has certainly given advantage to manufacturers both on the shop-floor and within their products on customer sites – by helping in support and maintenance, but also in querying big data for insights and value. It’s driving decisions around productivity, wastage and research & development to deliver wins across the board.
Cloud Services
Cloud services are also still extremely valuable to manufacturers. Although many still keep heavy processing in a private cloud, the public cloud (particularly AWS and Azure) allows operations and development to flex, trial and scale-up (and scale-out) without the traditional costs and complexities of big kit in the server room. The pandemic has heavily accelerated change. Customers have demanded faster innovation, more data and information, greater integration, and increased security.
CRMs
CRM systems have moved on significantly and its greatly improving the service manufacturers are able to deliver to customers, whether it is on managing expectations, delivering value or collecting relevant information. They can also drive an increase in sales in terms of new business wins, cross-sales and real-engagement with marketing automation.
Big CRM projects were historically associated with large capex costs. However, now they virtually all come in a cloud-based delivery model on a price per user basis.
Digital Transformation Road Mapping & IT Consultancy
QuoStar specialise in IT solutions. We can help with Digital Transformation Road mapping, as well as offering IT Consultancy services. Don’t with QuoStar you also have access to a CIO Service too!