Mercian Steps up to Achieve Service Excellence
The innovative West Midlands housing association, Mercian, has appointed Ray Prior to the position of Corporate Resources Director to drive its service improvement plans based on the EFQM business excellence model.
Ray, who trained as Chartered Accountant with Coopers & Lybrand, brings a wealth of experience in managing the corporate resources which he gained during his 13 years working for the consumer goods company Epson.
At Epson Ray was in charge of, Finance, IT, HR, Facilities, Quality Management and Environmental Management. He also took a leading role in many special projects including cost efficiency, energy reduction, setting up service and repair centres, call centres, pension restructuring as well as coaching and empowerment projects.
Ray developed Epson’s Corporate Social Responsibility policy and medium term strategy and his work on the EFQM Business Excellence model has resulted in the company achieving the Investors in Excellence accreditation in 2006.
In Mercian Ray will be responsible for Finance, HR, IT and Policy functions and to drive the culture of continuous improvement using the EFQM framework for business excellence.
Laurice Pointing, Mercian’s Chief Executive said: “Mercian is very committed to improving its services and becoming even more customer focussed for the benefits of our current and future residents. Ray brings excellent business practices within the cultures of continuous improvement and will help us apply those into the housing operations.”
Commenting on his appointment Ray Prior said: “I am looking forward to working with colleagues from the Executive team and the Board in delivering the very exciting programme highlighted in the Mercian Manifesto and ensuring that our corporate services are customer focussed, efficient and providing value for money. I hope to create opportunities to enable Mercian to deliver excellent services to all our customers and personally to be able to make a difference for an organisation with a strong social purpose of helping people lead better lives.”