INTERVIEWWINDCRAFT
Close to the Wind
Windcraft Distribution has carved itself a niche in the brass and woodwind market with its sales and repairs service. It is also a sister company to
Maidenhead retail operation Dawkes Music. Andy Barrett talked to the firm to find out how it manages to balance the two and where Windcraft goes next…
M
aidenhead is famous for very little. At one time, however, it used to be a popular
destination for Edwardian aristocracy and nouveau riche wanting a dirty weekend. ‘The Jewel of the Thames’ the signs read as you enter from Slough. Hmmm. Not really. Not any more. Today Maidenhead is much like any
other town surrounding London: a sprawling population, a pedestrianised High Street lined with national retail chains, glass offices and scattered retail and industrial parks. In one of these parks, however, Maidenhead has tucked away a little jewel of its own in the shape of Dawkes Music and the associated Windcraft distribution operation. Now, before we go any
further, Dawkes Music is not Windcraft and vice versa. It’s always a touchy subject when a retailer also has a distribution arm, but when Jon and David Dawkes took over the businesses following the death of their father, Lindsay Dawkes, they quickly realised that there could be no grey area between the two. “Dawkes Music attracts people
from all over the country,” explains Jon Dawkes. “It’s a specialist retailer. People know us and know where we
32 July 2011
Windcraft’s goal is to have 50 instruments in the range by 2013
are, so it makes sense to keep the shop going where it is. But we have a plan to move Windcraft out of these buildings and make a complete separation between the two. Even now, Dawkes Music is just another customer for Windcraft.” And this is why we are here. Windcraft
has been chugging on very nicely for decades now, supplying spare parts, accessories and repair materials to the brass and woodwind trade, but the past couple of years has seen the firm developing a range of instruments that it hopes will change the face of the sector. “When dad passed away, I took over Dawkes and David took Windcraft, but I am a marketing and sales person and David’s strengths lie in finance,” explained Jon Dawkes. “It made sense for us to work for both with managers running the businesses, but we are constantly trying to split the two in order to make Windcraft a pure trade supplier.” That focus enabled the brothers
to look at the distribution business, but with the eyes of experienced retailers and as a supplier of parts – and they quickly saw a flaw in the new market developing around the Far Eastern-made products. “A lot of the student models finding their way on to the market were often from an unknown source and even if you could track down the manufacturer, waiting for spare parts could take months,” says Dawkes.
“Without even going into the quality of some of these instruments, we needed to get some sort of control over the supply of both the instruments and their spare parts.”
What followed was four years of research, designing instruments and sourcing factories, together with help from Alun Hughes of the Hughes Partnership and Windcraft’s manager, Jason Stretch. The time and effort, Dawkes believes, was (and is) essential to get the instruments right, but it seems to be paying off.
“
We needed to get some sort of control over the supply of both the instruments and their spare parts
Windcraft now has 21 instruments in
its catalogue covering three series, 1, 2 and 3, with series 1 being the student instruments, series 2, mid-range Taiwanese and Chinese models and series 3 professional instruments made in Europe and America. The goal is to have 50 instruments in
the range by 2013, but Dawkes is quick to point out that this is not set in stone. “It’s good to have a goal,” he smiles.
“We are working on new models, but we just refuse to rush this. The student models are, in many ways, a bit easier to
ww.mi-pro.co.uk
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