Today, we are glad to be joined by Richard Fuller, the managing Director at County Battery Services Ltd. It’s a company that was founded by his father in 1974. They deal with different types of batteries that is for cars, alarms, battery-operated toys, cordless phones, and digital cameras. The batteries are both rechargeable and non-rechargeable.
What is your business superpower? I can say that our business superpower is really our staff for without them we wouldn’t be in business. They are the people behind everything since it is them who build and make the products. We make sure that as a company we move in the same direction and have the same values and that we are all doing the same thing. How do you engage your staff, suppliers and customers with your mission and purpose? About five years ago we adopted a system called 2-second lean whereby everyone in the company makes a 2-second saving every day. Every morning for about 30 minutes we hold a meeting in which we use this time to sweep, sort and standardize. We may clean or tidy the place up that is, sweep and sort, and then we make sure that everyone is using the same system, that is standardize. We also take time out of the day to talk about what we are doing wrong or right and how we can improve and also encourage each other. What has been your biggest struggle so far in running an ethical and sustainable business and how have you overcome it? I can’t really say that we have any struggles when it comes to running an ethical business since for us as a green company our main concern is helping our customers and that really entails everyone around us and we do this by maintaining the environment. This has really helped us save a lot of money. If you could offer one piece of advice to our listeners to help them with their purpose, what would that be? I would advise that depending on what your purpose is just do what works for you. Don’t always go with the flow. Make sure that you stand out from the crowd. Can you tell us how you approach environmental management and your carbon footprints? Some years back, I was concerned about the carbon footprint but had nothing in place to measure it out with so we joined a program called Investors In Environment, where on joining they give you a couple of students who come and take a look at your business, measure and combine a report and give you options on what you can do for example switching to LED lights.
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