BMJ


BUILDERS MERCHANTS JOURNAL


Nick Oates:


Building brands with suppliers


Supplier Summit


The theme of the 2016 NBG Conference was Building our Brands and the emphasis was on how both merchants and suppliers could work effectively together to develop and monetise their brands.


A


t NBG’s first ever Supplier Summit, NBG MD Nick Oates recognised how much effort and investment that NBG suppliers make in building and growing their brands and what an important contribution they make to Partners’ businesses.


“NBG has no own label and we’re not planning to have one,” he commented. “Why would we want a conflict with what our suppliers do best? The aim of this conference and the innovations we are launching today is to make it easier, less taxing and more profitable for suppliers to deliver great branded products and for our Partners to sell them.” At a time when many nationals are destocking branded products NBG feels that brands are a key way that our independent Partners can steal a march with trusted, quality products that grow good margin business for merchants. NBG is always keen to hear feedback from its Suppliers and so carried out its


BMJ January 2017 Building our Brands


first ever Supplier Survey. And NBG has not been slow to act on the findings with a number of key initiatives aimed at giving suppliers improved tools and channels to communicate with Partners and grow brands through the buying group.


Positive feedback


“The feedback highlighted the areas that we knew we wanted to improve,” Oates said. “Most significantly, all of them fundamentally lead to the same end point: how do we get profitable sales growth for all our businesses, both those of our Partners and our suppliers?” One of the first brand building


exercises that NBG carried out was in its own back yard with the launch of a new website and improvements to its Hub business system. “We have consistently invested in IT and technology to provide Partners and Suppliers with the tools they need to do business together and the improvements we have made online


and within our hub really do take that to the next level,” says Oates. This heavy investment in IT innovation is one of the key ways that NBG is differentiated from other groups and the launch of the new website is no exception. “We have so many great news stories, but we haven’t drawn attention to these successes enough; for example our Partners opened 34 new branches in 2016 ! The new website now projects the group’s ethos and reinforces our position as the premier buying group for Independents – a professional, strong and unified buying group with an important focus on community and supplier relationships,” said Oates. “We have spent much time and effort on developing our new site. This is our shop window and an important point of reference for our Partners and Suppliers and overall I believe members, potential members, and other stake holders will have a far friendlier and more accessible experience”.


7

Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60