AM Awards: Best community initiative, Sytner Group

27 February 2009

Best community initiative sponsored by Total

Sytner Group is a major motor retailer, but it does not let its geographical scale stop it from being at the centre of its heartlands.

In fact, the Leicester-based company encourages all its dealerships to support local initiatives and become pillars of their communities.

At its annual managers’ conference, managing director Gerard Nieuwenhuys launched a company-wide ‘local hero’ initiative. It challenged all its dealers to actively seek out ways to become involved in the community and become a local hero.

Sytner Group provided a £10,000 prize fund to be awarded to the dealership team that could best demonstrate its contribution to its area, which it would use to re-invest back into the community.

“The initiatives bring benefits for staff, customers and manufacturers”

The objective was to encourage dealerships to use their imaginations, existing resources and relationships to really make a difference in their locality.

It has resulted in numerous good news stories from the group’s businesses. Guy Salmon Jaguar in Coventry works with the Life Path Trust, which helps people with learning disabilities to participate in the community. One such person, Robert Daykin, joins the dealership every Wednesday to help its valeters, with the support and supervision of two employees.

At West London Audi, dealer principal Ray Campbell has led by example. Having already done a fund-raising parachute jump he now plans to cross the Sahara on foot in aid of the Shooting Star Children’s Hospice.

The hospice has benefited in many ways from West London Audi’s support, from providing chauffeur driven cars for its ball, donating toys for its patients, payroll giving and staff fund-raising.

These are just two examples, but Sytner Group has dozens of letters of thanks from the causes, organisations and individuals that its dealerships are supporting.

The initiatives bring benefits for staff, customers and manufacturers, and have put the group in touch with the lives of people in its areas.

“Whether giving something back has been led by a dealership champion or a cross-departmental committee, the result has been the same: a reinforcement of our Sytner ‘One Team’ philosophy and a great feel-good factor in return at a time when, for everyone in business, the market is challenging,” states Sytner.

Highly commended