Tony Dennington - Chief Commercial & Sustainability Officer at POSITIVE+
What is your number one goal for 2023?
We are continuing to adjust to new challenges such as increased material and energy costs, by driving efficiencies in production methods to produce the highest quality products and services at a competitively valued price, which is paramount to our clients and our growth. Whether working in fibre based paper and card or plastics such as cast coated and extruded acrylic, PETG, fabric, metal, wood or plastic I believe now more than ever it is so important to align our production capabilities to our clients’ needs in the most sustainable ways possible. Through creative design we can influence carbon reduction in a number of ways such as re-use, recycle or bio-degradable methods and I think this is something we will continue to develop throughout 2023.
How important is Social Media to your business?
Social media is important to us to let everyone know what we have been up to and what we can offer. I liken social media to a newspaper and our website to a coffee table book, its fast and impactful but ultimately disposable and sits alongside our customer sales team and our ‘coffee table book’ website. In a time of more emails, teams calls and working from home, face to face meetings are less frequent than they were and with that less opportunities to talk face to face about what we have been up to and what we can offer. Social media is accessible to everyone whether they are at their desk, work from home or on the go and something that helps keep us current with our clients whilst promoting recent projects through our regular case studies and blogs.
Education is fundamental in all aspects of a good business. What is your most important educational tool for your business?
We formed our own Positive training academy in 2019 which has proved to be a huge success with new joiners and the existing team alike, especially where new technology and systems have been introduced into our day to day workings such as our latest MIS that went live earlier this year to help further improve production and wastage efficiencies. We have also incorporated our Positive Planet initiative into the academy training program to better familiarise everyone with best working practices to reduce our in-house carbon footprint and reduce the carbon footprint for client projects wherever possible. It gives our new joiners a chance to fully immerse themselves into the business from day one to better understand how we work and what works for our clients as well as create an immediate inclusion into our small but perfectly formed team.