Welcome to our latest Director’s Blog – directly from the top, this is our annual roundup of the year and a few points that have arisen towards the end of 2015. Read, absorb and digest and if you want to win a Christmas ornament made by ourselves, please read on!
End of our Financial Year
2015 has been a difficult year for us with the Oil and Gas industry being very quiet due to the massive reduction in the price of oil. However, the Lestercast team pulled through with a good recovery in the last few months of the financial year; beating the budgeted turnover by 2% and budgeted profile by 4%, a growth of 5.2% in turnover on last year which is a fantastic result in a depressed market.
MIA Awards
We have managed to secure the sponsorship of the ‘Small Business of the Year’ award in the Motorsport Industry Association (MIA) for three years and this year, Chris presented the award at the main Motorsport Industry dinner on 14th January this year. This is a great marketing opportunity and highlights Lestercast and its products in front of five hundred of the top owners and designers in Formula 1 and associated motorsport companies. We wish to offer our heartfelt congratulations to all that were involved in the category and of course especially to this year’s winners – Base Performance Simulators, (Darren Turner accepting the award from Chris Batty, left).
New Research and Development Room
Continuing with our aim of developing Lestercast and its facilities, we have converted the old stock room into a new Research and Development facility on-site. This latest addition to our facilities is a great marketing tool for us and will be impressive to potential new companies, especially if we are going to try and attract more F1 and motorsport companies.
The Year Ahead – 2016
We are looking to consolidate our business during 2016, push our sales efforts forward in Rapid Prototyping, Oil and Gas, Nuclear and Rail which we believe will allow us to increase turnover by a further 19% in 2017, bring it on!!
Christmas Tree Ornaments 2015, by Lestercast!
This Christmas we were delighted to design and manufacture a token gift made here at Lestercast to wish customers a joyous festive period, thank them for their business and showcase some of our talents! The Reindeer and Christmas tree ornaments were very well received by staff and clients alike. Should you wish to receive one, we’d be happy to send one out to the first 10 requests! Our Christmas 2016 offering is already in the planning stages!
Summary
Overall, we did very well in performing so well as a company in 2015 considering the market conditions. We are looking forward, during 2016, to building up a lot of new business that will see the company hopefully expanding significantly in 2017 and 2018.
To all our clients, potential customers and friends, we wish you all an equally successful year ahead in 2016!
Chris and Malcolm.