Straightpoint Wins Business of the Year Award

Straightpoint was named Business of the Year 2014 by a leading business coaching company who selected the local cell manufacturer based on profit growth, sales growth, marketing excellence, team leadership and development.

Action Coach works with firms in 50 countries but the Business of the Year award was presented to one winner from its portfolio of companies in the UK’s south central region, which covers Portsmouth, the Isle of Wight and Southampton.

Gary Mullins, of Action Coach, who works with Straightpoint’s team at Havant-based headquarters, said: “We measure companies based on actual profit and loss figures, financial and percentage growth as well as steps taken by the business to build strong systems and most importantly a high performance team.”

Operations director Alfie Lee collected Straightpoint’s Business of the Year trophy at the recent Action Coach awards evening.

Mullins has worked with Straightpoint for over a year, initially with director David Ayling and then more extensively with senior management and other key team members. He revealed that the load monitoring and suspended weighing load cell specialist emerged top in every judging category.

He said: “I have seen David develop personally and show great leadership skills. His abilities to build the key elements of a strategic plan, develop and implement action plans, and focus on building his team have stood out in particular. He has built a tremendous platform from which to take the company to the next level.”

Ayling said: “We are thrilled to win the award and hugely appreciative of the guidance and encouragement Gary has given the team and I to achieve our business goals. I have a great sense of satisfaction in that we can attribute part of our success in the categories in which we were judged to the partnership we have developed with Action Coach.”

He added: “The business continues to enjoy aggressive growth and I am glad that Gary is available to provide support and a perspective from outside the company. While I dedicate the accolade to each and every member of staff that made it possible, Gary himself deserves a great deal of credit.”

Mullins highlighted Ayling’s commercial skills and development of the company’s distribution network. He anticipates that, in just five years, Straightpoint will have an even stronger global presence with a robust US-based business (Straightpoint Inc. is poised to achieve its growth potential having moved to a new facility in Camarillo, California) and a distributor network that will be the envy of competitors.

He added: “The effort David has put in has been immense and he has achieved results that he is rightly proud of. To build a great business you need a great team and David is building this both internally and throughout his global network of partners.”

Due to extensive global travel, Ayling was unable to accept the award in person and operations director Alfie Lee represented Straightpoint at the recent Action Coach awards evening. He said: “I was very proud to accept the award. I have known David and his business partner Peter McGreal for in excess of 25 years and have watched with interest as the business they purchased back in 2002 has grown and flourished under their leadership. To now be part of that growth and to be recognised for it by Action Coach is very rewarding.”

Lee joined the company in May 2014 and has attended Mullins’ training events in addition to one-to-one sessions. He added: “Gary is now mentoring us on trying to help us adapt the business to focus on streamlining stock levels. As the newest member of the board of directors it was an honour to accept this prestigious award.”