The Singular approach to specification selling, coupled with a strong relationship with a key London plumbing and heating contractor, has resulted in a full category win in a North London urban renewal scheme.
The 138-apartment project in the London Borough of Barnet is part of the Upper and Lower Fosters Estate, which is being redeveloped according to a masterplan by Barnet Homes, the housebuilding arm of Barnet Council.
Worth £151k, it will feature i.life A sanitaryware, Ceraline basin mixers, Ceratherm T25 bath/shower mixers and shower valves, Connect 2 shower enclosures and Simplicity trays over three tenure levels: affordable rent, shared ownership and private sale.
The main contractor is Hill Partnerships, who assigned Woodford Heating & Energy to draw up the bathroom specification.
Specification Manager Ian Smith turned the original mixed specification, which included Geberit, Vado, Merlin, MX Group and Kaldewei, into an Ideal Standard full specification.
He said: “Woodfords & Hill wanted a high level of investment and value from us which we demonstrated during the proposal process.
“They understand that if you have one company providing the taps, another doing the trays, another doing the glass, then you are not going to get the same level of support as you will from a manufacturer delivering all categories to the scheme, and you will also have lots of different people to deal with.”
As a result, they gave us the full specification, which ties in with our Singular philosophy and contributes towards our 2023 quest for fittings growth.
He added: “The other key message here is that we have to operate and build strong relationships at all of the touchpoints in the specification process. That includes the merchants, the installers, the main contractors and the developers.
“In the Southern Residential team, we view the specification process simply as a series of tenders. We can win or lose a specification dependent on the strength or weakness of our relationships at any of these tender stages.
"If our relationships are weak at any touchpoint, then we will miss the opportunities to win new business, and just as importantly, the opportunities to defend our own business.
"We become a soft target for the likes of Roca, Geberit, Vado, RAK Ceramics or a hostile spec merchant and we won’t achieve the growth we are looking for."