People
Issue No. 5 - April/June 2002
Leveraging Quality
Qwin Business Enterprises was founded in 1994 by quality assurance expert Nikki Cheesman-Dutton, now Qwin’s Managing Director. Slow growth over several years ended with a bang last year, when Qwin’s workforce exploded to over 40 staff.
The prime mover of this expansion has been a multi million dollar contract with Telstra, which Qwin won against national competition. The Telstra work is, in effect product inspections, making sure that subcontractors have completed the work Telstra has paid for. Qwin inspectors scan the national carriers day-to-day operations.
Although Qwin have 30 staff based interstate, there are no plans to relocate HQ to the centre of operational gravity, Sydney. Parochialism aside, it is cheaper to operate head office in Adelaide.
Nikki (in 1994 but 21 years of age) founded Qwin as a quality assurance consultancy, implementing ISO certified systems. A large part of Qwin’s business remains quality assurance in ISO 9000 series, ...



