East Midlands Chamber of Commerce is the leading business representation organisation in the East Midlands region. In 2018, it was voted Chamber of the Year in the British Chambers of Commerce awards.
With a growing membership of more than 4,300 businesses which range in size from start-ups to businesses operating on a global scale, the Chamber is renowned across the region for enhancing Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire businesses and communities.
The Chamber’s activity is diverse and multifaceted and thousands of businesses trust the Chamber to help their businesses flourish and grow – irrespective of size or sector.
Members benefit from a wide range of business support services from training, lobbying and campaigning to support services that help them trade across the UK and internationally.
FPA Consulting has helped the East Midlands Chamber of Commerce achieve management standards and procure energy efficiently. Chamber members can therefore be confident that their interests are represented by an organisation that operates efficiently and according to an internationally recognised set of standards.
We have a long-standing relationship with EMCC and now provide the Chamber with an end to end service to ensure their management standards are maintained.
Our involvement began by helping them to design the scope and specification of its various quality accreditations. We helped to shape the business case and return on investment that will be achieved from pursuing accreditation. We then helped with implementation so that they were able to achieve each accreditation.
Initially, we supported the management of ISO 9001 Quality Management System. Having demonstrated our value and expertise on this project we then helped with the development, implementation and external audit of ISO 27001 Information Security Standard. More recently we have developed, implemented and carried out the external audit of ISO 22301 Business Continuity Standard.
We now ensure all the standards are maintained on a continuous basis.
In addition to supporting EMCC to maintain its health and safety and management standards we also act as their energy and utility consultant.
This has included carrying out price risk management assessments to ensure the Chamber is buying electricity, natural gas, water and renewables cost-effectively and efficiently.
Acting as their utility consultant, we have assisted with all aspect of their energy procurement and compliance.
Demonstrating that the Chamber is an exemplar regarding quality is extremely important. Quality accreditation standards form the backbone of this and therefore it is increasingly important that quality standards are not only maintained but a programme of continuous improvement is evident.
The Chamber has a long history of securing public sector business support contracts that allow it to deliver demand-led business support – one aspect important to securing these contracts is evidence of quality management and FPA Consulting have been and still are pivotal to that requirement.
“FPA Consulting has added significant value to the Chamber’s operations over many years and the return on investment is clear. Continuous improvement is important to every business, irrelevant of size or sector and FPA Consulting provide the Chamber with the expertise that allows that to become reality. Without their support, the scope and capacity of the Chamber’s offer to its members and customers would not have the breadth it has today. ”
Scott Knowles - Chief ExecutiveFPA Consulting was appointed to provide an interim procurement management position for the University of Derby. During this period, several design and build construction projects, ranging in value from £250k to £3m were awarded. The University’s devolved procurement structure was also managed to ensure that best value was secured.
