News

The Armour Training Academy - Significant Further Expansion Gets Go-ahead! (1/8/2006)

Armour Home Electronics is pleased to announce it is making a major investment in the future of the UK custom installation industry. The Armour Academy, already established as the industry's premier training centre, is to move to a new, purpose built training suite, within Armour's facility at Bishop's Stortford. Following this, in another significant move, Armour will open a fully equipped second training academy in Manchester late in 2007. The size and facilities available at Manchester will mirror those in the south.

Construction starts on the new Bishop's Stortford centre early in September and it is expected to be fully operational by late October 2006.

Paul Hilditch, AHE's Training Manager said: "The whole training team is delighted with this news. The new dedicated facility will have an area of 80m/sq., some 60 percent larger than current. It is also incredibly flexible, because today's training environment requires us to deliver a wide spectrum of training modules, ranging from fairly straightforward lectures to specialised 'hands-on' workshops, where up to 30 attendees will sit at fully networked individual workstations."

Paul continued: "Frankly, we just can't wait to get in and get started. It's going to raise our game to another level. We intend to increase the number of courses available by 50 percent and early booking indications point to an increase in attendees of 25 percent."

Armour Home Electronics' Managing Director, Glenn McClelland added: "Training is so obviously the key to success for the whole custom installation business that we are happy to offer these wonderful new facilities to customers and non-customers alike."

Asked why AHE would do this, McClelland explained: "We're still a young and expanding industry, which means we have new personnel entering the business all the time. It is absolutely essential that all customer facing people, designers, sales staff, installers, everyone involved, is fully trained in their respective disciplines, so we get more and more delighted clients - and only delighted clients!"

Smiling, Mr McClelland went on to say: "Please don't misunderstand our position here. I wouldn't want anyone to get the impression that we are being philanthropic in our endeavours to drive up standards across the industry. Armour is clearly the leading supplier to the CI business in the UK, therefore anything that helps to grow that market is very good news for its major player."

www.armourhe.co.uk