‘Raising the Bar, Changing Gears‘ was the title of the Kick Off staff event for Productive Business Solutions (PBS) held recently at the picturesque Mahogany Ridge.

The event brought together staff from the various departments of the technology company to share the achievements of 2015 and focus on the vision and projections of the company for 2016. But it was not all work, there was also the opportunity to reward staff who had achieved long service with the organisation and those whose performance was outstanding during the past year.

Each one of the Management team at PBS made a presentation to the staff that gave an insight as to how the department worked and they shared the successes, singling out the members of staff in their department who did well and identifying customers who have shown their satisfaction with the service which they had received from the various teams at PBS.

General Manager Elvin Nash got the celebrations off to a great start when he identified the volume of overall growth for the company in 2015. He explained to the employees that there was growth in the Managed Print Services (MPS) which was due to the redesigning of clients print workflow, addressing cost savings and productivity with the many types of printers which PBS proactively manages for its clients.

He gave details on the successful launch of the power protection and connectivity solutions partnership with Tripp Lite, which complements the other IT related brands such as Cisco, Oracle and Entrust DataCard.

Nash also spoke to the fact that companies who did not constantly assess their business environment and customer requirements and then adjust accordingly, all ended up as fallen giants, irrelevant logos of a time past. He stressed that PBS must listen to the market and constantly evolve in order to grasp perfection.

In addition, he introduced the new members of the team and outlined some adjustments and promotions among the employees before handing over to the various managers who gave in-depth insight into the operations of their respective departments for 2015. Many of them related success stories of exceeding customer expectations both in Barbados and the region (from Belize to Suriname) and of new innovative processes that will be taking place in 2016 as a result of new technologies or new initiatives.

One outstanding presentation that resounded with all the departments and generated copious applause as she spoke, came from Alison Daniel, the Senior Sales Representative who was described as passionate about her customers. She stressed the importance of all customers big and small and how they should be served. She emphasised that both the internal and external customers should be given outstanding service.

From the Service Department, Field Service Supervisor Steve Cumberbatch explained the rise of PBS Barbados from Gold to Platinum, the penultimate level of Certification given by Xerox Corporation as their Authorised Service Provider in Barbados. He has promised their intent to press on during 2016 in order to reach the next Xerox level of Diamond. This is the way of certifying how well the department does by measuring the time from the initial receipt of a service request to the final resolution as well as the client’s perception of the experience and is a worldwide Xerox certification.

The evening climaxed with the awarding of staff members who had excelled in their various areas – Product Specialists Henry Shockness and Jabar Caddle both received awards for achieving targets. Two team awards were issued, the first to the PBS Print Services department for Innovation and the IT Field Service Team for a successful island wide project implementation. Other awards that were issued included the Manager’s Award to IT Sales Manager, Christopher Derrell who achieved 114% of his target and Service Manager Alvin Greene whose department moved from Gold to Platinum Xerox certification.

However the Top Performer for the year and the recipient of the General Manager’s Award was Alan Manning who surpassed all targets given to him and sold one million US dollars in sales and was jokingly introduced by the General Manager as the Bajan equivalent to Steve Austin – the One Million Dollar Man.

Endurance Awards were also presented for staff who had achieved over 20 years with the organisation.