“If we wanted to retain certain customers and get new ones, we needed to be ISO certified,” said Peter Spohn, Director of Business Development for Textiles Coated International. Recently they attended the NH MEP ISO 9001:2008 Collaborative Training Program and became ISO certified. “But to keep our business current we realized we needed to upgrade to ISO 9001:2015,” said Spohn. “Again we turned to NH MEP for help with handling our ISO upgrade training.” This time, the training would be done on-site.
Business Growth Collaborative Program Puts Concord Awning & Canvas on Path to Success
“When we purchased Concord Awning, we recognized it needed some upgrades. There were no standard operating procedures, no pricing tools, an antiquated computer system, a paper-based system to track sales, and the company’s static website was not focused on bringing in new customers.” said Peter Sandberg.
“About 5 years into running the company our largest customer took their business in-house and hired 3 of our employees,” said Denise Sandberg. “We realized from the start that having one disproportionately large customer was not a good long-term plan for our business. When that customer made their decision to leave, we knew we had to accelerate our existing plan of expanding more into commercial and industrial markets to balance out the seasonality of the awning portion of our business.”