At this time of year, it’s natural to reflect on the year just gone and take stock, and also to look ahead to the challenges and opportunities of the year ahead. We all know that 2021 has been a pretty tumultuous 12 months, perhaps not to the extent of the preceding year but with its own ups and downs nevertheless.
Our business has been like a powerful car with wheel clamps on it; we’ve had so much brilliant work going on, so many fantastic products coming to market but we’ve been held back by the supply issues that have been felt globally and the constant uncertainty surrounding the pandemic.
Despite all the external pressures, I have never lost confidence in our ability to overcome this and, even as a new COVID variant threatens to derail things once again, I really feel like 2022 is going be a year to remember for Ideal Standard for reasons I’ll outline in just a moment.
But first I’d like to look back on some of our achievements in 2021.
On the design leadership front, we launched Atelier Collections and the silk black finishes to market, and they are already getting fantastic feedback from architects, designers and retailers, three of the key audiences for these products. We took these products to our first major exhibition since early 2020, Design London, and also did ourselves proud in our leg of the Together World Tour. We reopened the London Design and Specification Centre, whose presence in the London design and architecture community has such as positive impact.
This year, our new retail strategy really hit its stride, with the newly expanded retail sales team securing dozens and dozens of displays in showrooms nationwide, including what we are calling “flagship” displays, which feature several roomsets in prominent retailers. The first of these in the UK and Ireland was unveiled at Beggs and Partners in Belfast a couple of weeks ago and we are confident that it will do a great job of attracting consumers.
During 2021, we have also seen housebuilders continuing to bounce back really solidly from the depths of March 2020. This is obviously an important channel for us so it’s reassuring to see this resurgence translating into orders, something that is evidenced by the sheer amount of development that is taking place anywhere we go.
Our ecommerce and DIY strategy has picked up pace as we have gone live with major online players like Amazon, Screwfix and Victorianplumbing, and we have invested in a new team to support this. This has been a steep learning curve for us since we went live with Victoriaplum in 2018 and we continue to get better as we learn to play in this channel which has so much growth potential for us as a business.
The non-residential team has been doing a fantastic job of maintaining our market-leading position in healthcare, taking share from our competitors across the channel and developing new strengths in areas such as warehousing, where Amazon has now become a regular customer for us. The launch of ProSys has also started to have an impact here and I look forward to seeing that develop.
The trade and specification team have successfully embedded their new structure, undergone huge amounts of training and development, and really pushed forward to help the business reap the benefits. Part of this has been the roll out of Salesforce, which picked up speed in 2021 to the point where we are now getting full adoption of this outstanding platform.
I know we have been running with quite a high number of vacancies and I’m grateful to everyone who has shown resilience as we have worked to ensure the continuity of our company. We have been working to fill these roles and continue to reduce the number of vacancies we have, in what is a highly competitive labour market.
For me, 2020 was about ensuring business continuity in the face of a very severe threat and 2021 has been about preparing the groundwork to accelerate in 2022. We’ve had some major structural and personnel changes throughout the year, which are starting to pay dividends now and we have also seen some massive changes in our customer base with the sales of Graham and Neville Lumb, Travis Perkins selling off its plumbing and heating division and Wolseley UK being bought by a private equity business.
As we head into 2022, I feel a genuine confidence that the foundations we have laid in 2021 will build into something outstanding. We follow the hugely successful product launches of this year – such as Atelier Collections and ProSys – with an exciting calendar of further releases.
This includes the i.life franchise, our new smart premium collection covering all categories and compact space saving solutions, which is already gaining traction ahead of launch in some of our major customers. There are further developments to Atelier with the classical Calla and startling Joy Neo. The Navigo showering collection will launch our new push button technology.
Later on in the year we will have some exciting new fittings developments. Gusto, the luxury kitchen collection in new PVD finishes, Intelliflo our new smart sensor tap range featuring IoT and Ceraplan hybrid, an innovative solution to being touchless technology into the home.
I’d like to end by saying a heartfelt thank you to everyone who has worked so hard in such difficult circumstances to ensure the continuity and success of our business. The effort and resilience has been truly amazing. This has been a challenging time for everyone and I hope you share my optimism for what is to come next year.
Happy Christmas from myself and all the senior leadership team. I hope you enjoy your break and have a restful time with friends and family. See you in 2022!