TALKING BUSINESS
MASTERING A PLAN FOR THE FUTURE
A firm which supplies abrasives and grinding products to the UK and Europe is on course to achieve a turnover of £10m by the end of this decade. Master Abrasives’ managing director PAUL BATSON looks back on the company’s most recent achievements and reveals its plans for the future.
Master Abrasives is a leading supplier of abrasives, tools, services and precision machines for grinding and finishing applications for industry. The Daventry-based company was set up in 1967
by Swiss-owned Meister Abrasives to sell a range of high quality mounted points in the UK. Over the following four-and-a-half decades the
business evolved greatly and following a UK management buy-out by Paul Batson, Jamie Ward and Andy Miller at the end of 2012, the newly independent Master Abrasives was formed. Paul, who has been the firm’s managing director
since 2013, said: “Since we became an independent company we have made several key changes which have helped the business to grow and as a result we achieved over £6m turnover last year. “We have developed four key areas of the
business including our Master Precision Abrasives, which is based around products that are used in high precision applications, and our Master Surface Finishing products which include a wide range of finishing media. “We have also developed our Master Tool Services
department which is a comprehensive service for the pneumatic and electric tool industry. We don’t just want to sell tools – we want to service them and advise businesses how their employees can operate them safely because we want to build long-term relationships with our customers so they know they can rely on us. We’ve been training employees on safe use of abrasives for the past three years and everyone who successfully completes the courses receives a certificate because we are recognised by the British Abrasives Federation. “We also have our Master Grinding Machines area
which features a range of precision grinding machines. We are very proud to be the only UK distributor for the Indian firm Micromatic Grinding Technologies. They supply 60% of the Indian market for cylindrical grinding machines and we were thrilled to recently sell and install the first Micromatic grinding machine in the UK – the ECO- 200 high accuracy universal grinder.” To continue to boost its already strong portfolio
of products the outward looking firm is always looking to cooperate with new global partners. Master Abrasives already represents many overseas businesses, including a Swiss spindle company with very specific finishing applications. It also remains the sole UK distributor of Meister Abrasives products alongside its own Master brand.
34 inbusiness APRIL/MAY 2018 Paul, who is also a board director of
Northamptonshire Chamber of Commerce, said: “As a company we are proud of our history. We have been around for more than 50 years, including 45 years as part of the Meister Abrasives group. Even though we are now independent we still have a close relationship with Meister as well as with lots of other partners and well-known companies. “In addition, our Master brand is a registered
trademark in the UK and Europe and we have a family of about 12 different abrasives made to our specifications under our name. We launched our Master brand about three years ago and we’re really working hard to export it, particularly in Europe. We’re also going out and identifying other products that we want to put under the Master brand.” The business is also keen to invest in the future of
its industry. It has recently recruited a technician apprentice and a manufacturing apprentice to its loyal workforce because it wants to attract more young people into engineering. In addition it has supported high profile projects, such as the Bloodhound SSC high technology project which is trying to inspire future generations of engineers by attempting to build a car that will break the 1,000 mph barrier and set a new world land speed record. Paul said: “We are the abrasives sponsor of
Bloodhound so we have supplied them with abrasives. We have been able to promote that relationship in our marketing but for us the bigger picture is that Bloodhound is encouraging young people into engineering which is something we are keen to do because we are proud of British engineering and manufacturing.” In the more immediate future the firm is excited
about taking part in this year’s MACH exhibition in Birmingham which is known as the UK’s premier event for engineering-based manufacturing technologies and attracts more than 25,000 visitors. Paul added: “We have a great team, including a
solid management team. We employ 38 people and they’re all able to work across a range of different skill sets. Our strapline is ‘Offering Solutions to Industry’ and the reason we have been successful is because whenever we’ve made any strategic change to the business we’ve thought about what is going to be good for our customers because ultimately that is who we have to satisfy. “Our ambition is to get the company up to £10m
by 2020. That is my driver at this point in time and based on what we have done so far it is achievable.”
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