NEWS EXTRA
ALL FOR ONE
Fortis, the independent builders merchant buying group, believes in working its members and suppliers hard over the course of its two-day conferences, but does allow a bit of time for fun and frivolity as well. Fiona Russell Horne went along to find out more.
BUYING GROUP FORTIS held its bienniel Building and Timber Conference last month, at which it presented its Supplier of the Year Awards, updated members on the group’s plans and strategy for the coming year, and held meeting with suppliers. As well as the awards and dinner, the two-day event saw 3,500 15-minute meetings held between suppliers and members. Fortis chairman David Berry is very clear on one thing, that the Fortis Building and Timber conference – like its sister event held a few weeks earlier for lightside members – is a working event with some fun thrown in, not a full-on jolly with a work element.
It’s a real solid focus. Berry explains. There are four loops of 34 suppliers the first loop is timber and joinery suppliers, building, civils and landscaping products, decorating, tools and ironmongery and insulation and roofing.
He says: “This ensures that the individual that comes
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from the merchant is the right person to have that meeting, that the timber buyers are sat with the timber merchants, so the conversations are real, meaningful and productive.” He says the idea is that every supplier sees every merchant, over the two days. “Once they finish on the first day having seen everyone up to, say Table 16, they just start again on the second day at Table 17. It’s really full-on but it does ensure that everyone gets real value out of the two days - the members and the suppliers.”
He continues: “Some of the meetings will be where there are existing supply arrangements between the members and the suppliers, some will be with those who aren’t currently working together. It’s all about keeping an open mind, about being aware of future possibilities and having conversations that might open up possibilities in the future. We know that suppliers want to talk to merchants who are
open minded about what benefits there might be to their businesses.”
There are 40 members across the organisation, and Berry says that this helps keep things focussed. “We believe that what makes us different is the small number of members. That makes it controllable, and it’s run by members for members, the members must all play their part. Because they all buy-in to that, they all buy-in to the
agreements. We also make sure that we have a low central overhead - there are only five members of staff. Will O’Meara is operations director, Alun Jenkins looks after the own brand, and we have Leigh Robson and Carol Price on admin, and Sandra Pierre looks after finance. That’s a small team, but it means that there is far more emphasis on the buying within Fortis being done by the merchants for the merchants.”
www.buildersmerchantsjournal.net May 2024
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