CDUK | DISTRIBUTOR PROFILE CDUK’s warehouse in Leeds


GONE FOR A QUICK SALE’ ‘WE’VE NEVER


Now in its 40th year, CDUK is still very much a family business, run by father and son team Geoff and Gary Baker. Vicki Evans visits the Leeds-based distributor that first brought Corian to the UK to find out more


Y


ou can have the biggest, fanciest warehouse in the world, but ultimately what makes a company stand out is the people.


Before we sat down to talk, Gary Baker gave me a quick tour of the warehouse. What impressed me was how every person we met, from the people in the warehouse to the training centre and the receptionist, Gary greeted by name and was interested in what they had to say. This was a family-run business and it felt very much like a family affair.


Founder and chairman Geoff Baker and son Gary, who is now managing director, run the business together and clearly have a great relationship with and commitment to their staff. Gary is also chairman of furniture industries training body Fiesta and is committed to nurturing and developing the skills and talents of tradesmen in the industry. Geoff founded the company 40 years ago with Toni Hibbert and the company has grown steadily since then. CDUK was the first distributor to introduce Corian or any other Corian-like products, to the UK market back in 1976. Geoff originally ran a plumbers merchant but was unhappy with the quality of the cultured marble material he was selling. So he went on a quest for a better material. He travelled to Hong Kong to meet DuPont, which makes Corian, and after several months of negotiations, the first ever shipment of Corian arrived in the UK. Geoff recalls: “They had started making it in 1969 and I got involved in 1976. It took me some time to organise distributorship. Eventually, I placed an order for a full container of Corian and this was something that they had never heard of and it shook the foundations of DuPont.” Shipping a whole container from China to the UK had never been done before, but it was the bold move


September 2019 · kbbreview


that became the foundation of this business. So how has the business changed over the intervening 40 years? The younger of the two Bakers says that fundamentally it has stayed the same. “The basic principle that dad set up 40 years ago of how to do things and all the things that will make it successful, from training to having the stock and giving good service – nothing about that has changed,” says Gary. “The way that we go and talk to kitchen showrooms is all how it was. It has just developed and modernised over the years. Like it has gone from taking three days to get a sheet to take 24 hours. We are trying to keep improving, but the fundamentals of how we go about business haven’t changed in years.” There are four basic principles at CDUK: customer service,


delivery, stock, and technical expertise. Delivery


Customers now demand instant delivery. In 2019, customers will not wait for a product to be delivered, so there is now 24-hour delivery on all products. A sheet of Corian can be with the


„ 65 Geoff and Gary Baker


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