The past 18 months has seen Wolseley, one of our largest customers, undergo significant change following the announcement of organisational restructure in late 2017. This period gave both businesses an opportunity to work closely together to re-align activity to focus on core areas. The aim was to revive and grow sales performance, and has led to the current position where we are now tracking double digit percentage sales growth.
Here, we talk to two people who have been instrumental in this turnaround, Wolseley Senior Category Manager Liz Barker (above, left) and our own Channel Director Jo Edwards (above, right).
The Bubble: Describe the relationship between Ideal Standard and Wolseley.
Liz: The relationship between Wolseley and Ideal Standard goes back several decades.
Jo: There were lots of relationships that were bought up by Wolseley as it grew; smaller companies that we worked with before they became part of Wolseley.
Liz: It’s a long-held trading relationship that has progressed through the decades. There have been a number of people who have led the relationship, with people leaving and retiring, but it has continued, which shows how important it is to both of us. Ideal Standard is the largest bathroom supplier to Wolseley in the UK, covering both domestic and commercial customer sectors.
Jo: And Wolseley was for a long time our biggest customer, the biggest across the whole group. It has always been a very balanced trading relationship.
Liz: It has been successful because of the relative market positions of both of us, Wolseley is a key route to market for Ideal Standard product, represented through our national branch network servicing both domestic and commercial customer demand, for specifications, projects and one-off purchases through showrooms. Our respective departments have always worked very well together cross-functionally, for example supply chain, finance and marketing. The relationship is not unique to the sales and purchasing teams.
The Bubble: So what has been happening at Wolseley?
Liz: The business has been through a period of restructuring over the past few years with the objective of making the best distribution outlet for customers and to a certain extent streamlining some activities to ensure future growth and the best service for customers.
Jo: During the restructuring programme, Ideal Standard didn’t have a national account manager for Wolseley. Then I joined Ideal Standard and at the same time Liz came in from the heating division of Wolseley to join the bathroom division.
Liz: At this stage, we didn’t have a jointly owned and organisationally bought-into medium to long-term plan. There were marketing and promotional campaigns, product launches, training and showroom development initiatives but no strategic plans which described what we wanted to achieve together over a longer period of time. So we jointly developed the framework for a three year plan, and set out stages in terms of what we wanted to achieve in year one, two and three, as well as financial goals and a series of objectives that would help us to achieve those goals. We agreed on a series of initiatives which would through successful execution enable us to achieve these goals. We also made sure we were able to track those initiatives by developing performance indicators that we could monitor and report back into the relevant stakeholders.
Jo: We built a plan but we made sure we got key stakeholder approval. In our business, it went to Stephen Ewer and in Wolseley to Mark Higson, the Managing Director. Gaining the support of these stakeholders helped to support the messaging and importance of the plan within both businesses. All the time, the businesses were changing quite quickly, so through our close alignment and stakeholder support, we were able to react and adapt the plan when required.
The Bubble: What changes have actually been taking place?
Liz: Our organisational restructure meant a change in focus on customer channels; essentially small plumbing and heating, large plumbing and heating, and building services. So we ensured that our initiatives within the three-year plan aligned to the needs of customers within these sectors. The three key initiatives that we have focussed on are firstly commercial RMI, focusing on small to medium-sized installers; secondly regional residential, targeting developers and aimed at large plumbing and heating accounts, and; the We Never Walk Away initiative, which aims to gain share across large plumbing and heating and building services.
Jo: Wolseley was restructuring people in regions to support the new organisational structure, and we had to adapt our plan to support new teams and individuals working within them. We were talking to people who didn’t necessarily have experience of bathroom products as they had moved from another part of the business.
Liz: It became apparent that we needed to give our colleagues visibility of the plan and guidance on what working together was going to deliver. We were also able to identify operational aspects that needed refocus, such as the range and breadth of our stockholding, and we worked with Ideal Standard’s supply chain to ensure that we were holding the right ranges in the right places to meet the specification demand, whether that was commercial or domestic. We produced the plans, got key stakeholder sign-off and then it was down to our respective teams to get out and about to meet people and then it was about maintaining it. We started to see the improvement in sales in November 2018.
Jo: We had faced some challenging months. However, both business’ commitment to own and deliver the initiatives, laid out within our jointly owned plan, resulted in double-digit growth every month since November.
The Bubble: How has this been received by people at Wolseley?
Jo: Our relationship, the processes we have been through together and the plans we developed are used in Wolseley as an example of how to do it.
Liz: It has certainly given a good working template for other projects, as a very good model for analysing performance.
Jo: The plan offers flexibility so we can adapt as required, its important that the plan continues to be relevant so we continue the growth momentum and identify new opportunities. It’s certainly important to keep the plan live and relevant within our business, and that involves great communication and engament with colleagues across the country. I’m going to Scotland next to present the plan. We have engaged at board level and we are now communicating it into the regions. By involving the regions both at a sales and operational level we are gaining momentum with each initiative and building for 2020.
The Bubble: What do you attribute the improvements to?
Liz: Following the sign off and buy in from the various stakeholders, I think it would be fair to say that we saw improvements in all three of the initiatives. That, in turn, allowed us to feed back the positive results to our businesses and the stakeholders which gave them confidence that we were pushing the right initiatives and enabled us to keep pushing them.
Jo: Not just initiatives. We also worked to improve services by having the right product in the right place at the right time so that confidence was there for the customer. It wasn’t just about adding new business; it was also about protecting existing business.
Liz: But I think a lot of it is down to the long term relationships that are established between the various functions – supply chain, data, marketing and so on – and the fact that they are keen to work together to achieve things that benefit both companies. Also the fact that you, Jo, have worked with Wolseley for many years and we’ve worked together a lot during that time.
Jo: Yes. It’s one thing to come up with a plan but at the end of the day it comes down to having the right people to put that into action and to all pull in the same direction. It’s great that we have those people in both businesses to help us achieve what we have set out to do.