Robert Vernon Associates is led by its Director Mark K. Astley who has over 30 years of production and international sourcing experience. 22 years in IKEA Trading and Tesco Sourcing as a senior manager working mainly in developing regions of Asia and Eastern Europe. He was part of the team that developed the ground breaking IKEA Way of Purchasing Home Furnishings products – IWAY. It was during his years with IKEA that he and fellow co-workers developed the IKEA Competitive Advantage and The Virtuous Circle. These were developed to drive the Quality, Social and Environmental issues into the daily IKEA Trading and IKEA of Sweden business activities.

The aim had always been to move QSE from a cost perception to actually a way of working and mindset to increase and improve profitability to achieve Good Business Growth.

For the last 10 years Mark was based in South Asia; living and working in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, responsible for business development -working for Good Business Growth.

Robert Vernon Associates now look to spread these ideas and concepts into the wider business community though our management team and network of Associates. We are dedicated to improve the lives of all stakeholders from the factory operator, the local communities, client co-workers, company owners and of course the final user – the customer.

View Mark K. Astley’s profile