Business students at home on the range and knocking on the door of future success!

Students explored the operations of two local businesses to complement and extend their learning as they work towards their CamTech qualification

West London Golf

The CTECH Business students visited West London Golf Centre in July as part of their business course.  Students had the opportunity to meet with the Managing Director Tony Mendai-Davis and Centre Manager Blaise Marden to talk directly to them about customer service.

Tony led a question and answer session on how customer service is carried out at the golf centre linking directly with their year 13 coursework topics that the students have to write about next year.

The centre manager Blaise took the students on a tour of the services that the golf centre has to offer to show the importance of meeting customer needs and how to offer exceptional customer service.

Blaise then took the students on a tour of the café, soft play, shop, the 9-hole golf course and then the range. Here the students got an opportunity to be customers when they got a chance to hit a few balls and practice their eagles, birdies and bogeys on the range!

Todd Doors

The CTECH Business students visited Todd Doors in June as part of their business coursework topic on Human Resources. Todd Doors is a family business that was started by Charles Todd in 1952, the business is still in Northolt to this day and is run by his grandson Matthew Todd.  During their visit students got to meet with the Managing Director Robert Mitchell and the Head of Human Resources. Karen Hills. 

Robert took the students on a tour of the showroom of over 450 doors and then to the workshop to see how the doors get their fixtures and fittings added.  Robert talked to the students about all areas of the business including customer service and the importance of employing key customer service skills when working in the sales department.

Students where then shown around the warehouse that stores over 250,000 doors at any one time, they got to visualise the day to day workings of the business, from deliveries arriving on shipping containers from Malaysia to fork lift trucks unloading the doors.  It was a very noisy environment, but a great opportunity to remind students that HR are responsible for the health & Safety of all staff and to ensure that they have the right PPE to keep them safe.

After a visit around the warehouse, students then had a tour of all of the offices and saw the customer services, finance, marketing and human resources departments.  An ex-Barnhill student Scott Preedy, was on hand to talk about the showroom that he manages in High Wycombe!  Students were then given a presentation on the roles and responsibilities of the HR department led by Karen.  The students had opportunities to ask questions before heading back to school.  The morning was a very useful insight into how a door manufacturer operates and links directly with the CTECH coursework that the students will be completing next year.