The 2019 Sales Conference has seen the company looking forward to a year full of challenge and ambition.
Key priorities were unveiled and our route to a successful year was outlined, with colleagues also taking part in workshops which asked them to look at how they could contribute to business objectives this year.
The conference began with an introduction to the Netherlands business, a team of 18 which has now joined the UK cluster to form a Western Europe cluster, following a reorganisation at group level.
It featured a look back at 2018 and the excellent working together across the business which enabled us to meet our 2018 AOP target, despite challenging markets and a slow start to the year caused by two months of unusually bad weather.
The event went on to analyse performance against the key objectives of driving share in some markets, broadening our horizons in others, protecting core areas and investing in our assets, including our people.
Looking forward to 2019, Managing Director Stephen Ewer outlined the priorities for the year: profitable market share growth; increasing business agility, and; further pipeline strength.
He also talked about building new strengths as a full specification creator in washrooms and developing our showroom and online presence, as well as reinforcing our foundations in healthcare and new house building.
Topics covered also included new product introductions for 2019, with new mirrors and lights, shower trays, wash troughs and urinals going to market this year.
This morning (Friday), the new group brand architecture was revealed, before colleagues took part in “strategy zones” where they discussed ideas for ways to tackle a variety of challenges, including driving brassware RMI, healthcare and our ambitions for the Sottini brand.
Stephen said: “This has been an extremely positive and vibrant event, with colleagues genuinely looking all set to tackle the challenges 2019 has in store for us.
“There was some really positive and constructive discussion in our strategy zones, and some ideas which were so good we’ll be taking them forward for consideration as the year progresses.”
Content from the conference will be shared in more detail in future editions of The Bubble, including the winners of the 2018 Recognition Awards.