Industry Celebration of 2023

Aston & James are delighted to have won the New Dealer of the Year award at The Office Friendly Awards 2023. 

The Office Friendly national industry awards

Office Friendly was founded in 1994 when independent business supply resellers teamed up to achieve exclusive trading arrangements. They realised that the more you put in, the more you get out. Office Friendly is a not-for-profit organisation with just under 200 members, that champions collaboration between workplace providers and the business supplies community and helps facilitate growth with industry-leading solutions.

The 2023 industry awards were for recognising and celebrating those in the Office Friendly community who demonstrated excellence, and outstanding achievements. Aston & James won a New Dealer of the Year Award. 

Who was eligible for the Campaign of the Year award?

Any dealer/reseller who joined Office Friendly after the 1st of July 2022 could nominate their business.

What were the criteria? 

The judges were looking for businesses in their community that demonstrated excellence, and outstanding achievements in the industry. These could be supply chain, sales, operational, or sustainability initiatives.

The criteria of the entries were judged on:

• The level of growth & achievement in our team
• What aided your business in achieving growth
• The key sectors of growth
• The adaptions made to help growth
• New products & service areas 

Aston & James New Dealer of the Year category entry

The key elements for our growth and improvements over the last year endorse a growth mindset across the whole team by working 'together everyone achieves more'. With this in mind, we increased our targets with an additional stretch goal to really push for category sales growth and future opportunities. Specifically targeting furniture and workwear. We continued to build on our Everything for the Workplace mission to be a one-stop shop for our local and regional customers. By using simplified messaging and processes to encourage the consolidation of suppliers and reduce the number of vehicles delivering to their premises.

We added to our team to head up education accounts and with a clear sales and marketing strategy we achieved a year-on-year 30% increase in this area. 

Implementing various marketing campaigns for how we can save our customers 'time, energy, and hassle' when procuring their workplace supplies really helped re-energise lapsed accounts.

Darren Aston, MD said, “It is great to be recognised alongside such key names, we're very proud of our achievements over the last 11 months. Our work is very rewarding, but it is also humbling to see our work acknowledged with a win at the Office Friendly Awards. We look forward to continuing to be part of the Office Friendly community and future collaboration".

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