SUPPLIER SUMMIT
TOGETHER T
BETTER
NBG MD Nick Oates took to the stage at the Partner and Supplier Event to talk about plans for 2022 and how the group is determined to work even more closely with Suppliers to the benefit of all.
he past year and a bit have very much been a case of ‘we’re all in this together’. The pandemic meant that everyone, Partners, Suppliers, competitors and colleagues had to come together to get the whole industry through. “That’s very much always been the way that we have always operated at NBG anyway,“said MD Nick Oates. Statistics, performance and motivation are key elements in working out how to improve. NBG now has 85 Partners across 105 companies, operating out of 429 branches and its overall turnover across those businesses has risen. “We have had two good years; in 2020 our purchases were slightly up on the previous year, when most of the rest of the market was down, and 2021 was up 35%,” he said. Within those figures, of course, is the issue of, in some areas considerable, price inflation, plus the group has expanded with new Partners. “We have had some Partners leave us as well, so overall, we believe these results are strong. In a way, it doesn’t really matter whether we know what’s round the corner or not. In NBG we have demonstrated we have Partners that are nimble and quick to react, and ready to meet the challenges that are coming our way.”
Despite the challenges, many Partners continued to grow, acquiring branches and businesses along the way. That’s something that will continue, Oates said. “When we conducted our Partner survey, we found out that there are 44 new branches planned for
4
2022 within the group and a further 66 the following year. That will put us well over 500 branches.”
In 2021, the group welcomed four new Partners in their own right: Buildland, Bridport, Sovini and Towy Works, as well as the brands who came on board as Associates of Partners, with the main investment from the expansion of private-equity-backed IBMG and Grant & Stone: RGB, Total Plumbing, CRS, Build It, DW Burns, Sussex Plumbing Supplies. “Our view is that private equity is here as part of the industry. And we are going to embrace it,” Oates said. “At NBG we have a common goal and it’s a simple one. We want to buy better and to grow sales with our Suppliers. There’s another challenge, and it’s a support and service challenge. At NBG we’ve tried really hard to be supportive of all our Suppliers. We know it’s been a tough 18 months and the service has been hard to deliver, at times really hard, so we
have tried to work with them to get through that.
“However, there is a gap between where we want our service to be and where we think that service is currently resting, and it’s a gap we need to fix.”
Over the past months, Partners – and possibly Suppliers too, to a certain extent - have been looking inwardly. Oates said: “This is not surprising. But now we are starting to look outwardly again at customers. So that means a call to our Suppliers to say: please, you really need to focus on improving your service to our Partners. We have to have moved on from there being no-one at a Supplier to take a Partner’s phone call because everyone is working from home.” Having said that, Oates did stress that there are Suppliers who have gone above and beyond in their efforts to get goods to where they need to be for customers. “We heard via the CMT groups that there were Suppliers
January 2022
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