SUPPLIER FOCUS NBG LOCKDOWN HERO:
STRONG BUT NOT SILENT NBG made a special award this year to the Supplier who went more than the extra mile in supporting Partners through the coronavirus pandemic.
H
eroes come in all shapes and sizes. Some wear capes, some sport shields, others are dressed in lab coats or hi-vis jackets. “It’s all about the conversation,” says Lee Gillman, Sales and Marketing Director of Mannok, recipients of NBG’s Lockdown Hero award. “We never stopped talking to our customers and we never stopped listening to them.
“It was so tough when we shut down in April, and yet our customers were still talking to me. Some of the most senior people in the Partners at NBG were saying: ‘we have to shut our doors for now, but we want to get open again because the country needs to keep building. Are you guys in a fit place to start supplying us again’? That was the question that Mannok and other Suppliers were being asked.”
Initially, Gillman says, it didn’t look like Mannok would be in a position to supply. “I spoke to our other Directors and we said to ourselves, if these guys want products and materials then let’s try and give them what they need. So, we pulled some stops out. We got some staff back in from furlough, we managed to get some product made and we said to NBG Partners, if you open up your gates, we will
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ensure that we can get some materials out to you,” he says. “It was hard work. Really hard work. My mobile number was probably right up there with the most dialled numbers for many Partners. I was literally talking daily to Bob Fleetwood, part of the General Build CMT.” Many other Suppliers didn’t or couldn’t get back to strength until July and Gillman thinks the fact that Mannok could did them a lot of good. “Plus of course, it did help that we’re a multi-product Supplier. Everything we sell to these merchants they are generally turning over sales hourly: cement, insulation, blocks.” Cashflow was tricky for some customers early on and Gillman says the company worked with the group to smooth out any payment issues. “I brought some of my team back early in June as we realised that with the number of independents, in particular, getting back to work, we needed to have more support so that we could support them. The national merchants were probably the last merchants to return to full time opening and that’s not a big part of our customer base; we are probably 95% with the independent sector. I probably spoke to everyone in NBG more from April to July than I have done in the previous three years. At a time when communication has never been
more important, we were communicating more than ever. Because we had to. We had to know what was going on with our customers so that we could support them the very best way we could. Our merchant Partners were saying that they were switching to click and collect and were saying to us, if you can get me the materials here by Wednesday, I want to open my doors with limited staff and I want to trade. So, we said, OK, we will get you the materials. That was how it started and it just rolled on and rolled on.” And in the midst of all the Covid challenges, the company decided to proceed with the roll out of its new branding – the switch from Quinn to Mannok. To go ahead with such a significant change in a challenging environment gives a strong signal of a long term commitment to the market. “We decided to go with it in the Autumn, on the grounds that if we got all the ducks in a row so to speak by the end of 2020, we should be in a good place to take the new brand forward.”
Winning the NBG awards for 2020 – the company won three as well as the Lockdown Hero – also helped to publicise the new brand. Gillman says that Spring 2020 was the first time the factories had shut down completely since
January 2021
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