Marshall Tufflex working with Spectus

Marshall Tufflex put the interest of its customers first and worked with Spectus to give its fabricators a future.

Sam Kennedy, Managing Director of market leading Spectus Window Systems says there are good and bad ways to exit the market.

Marshall Tufflex put the interest of its customers first and worked with Spectus to give its fabricators a future.

A fabricator-friendly way to leave the market.

The roll call of old PVC-U systems companies, the personalities that ran them, and the way companies exited the market makes good conversation around the bars after Glassex and the GO7 awards.

Remember Premier Profiles; Regency; KB Sterling; Kwest; Border; Worth; BCE Window Systems; HIS; Satin; Axis; Isosystems; Knipping; Gloplas; Smart Systems; Vinylex; Trocal window systems; Status; Plus Plan; National Profiles (Bardex); Permacell Finesse; Fios; KS Profiles; GKN Window Systems; Scope; Roplasto; Golde; Osterman and Scheiwe; Marley Extrusions and Primo ; Gardenia and Brugman? And there are others.

It's a maturing industry and the list is long.

Some of the names are still in use although the owners, systems, customers and people who ran them have changed, or they are no longer systems companies.

Some were acquired and renamed, merged with other brands and dropped.

Others continue but no longer extrude or sell in the UK.

A few ran out of road and failed.

The cause of this merger mania is market maturity.

It manifests itself as a rise in sophistication and customer expectations; a gradual market penetration and saturation of demand and a slowdown in growth; overcapacity from supply exceeding demand, and the need for a restoration of that balance through rationalisation and consolidation to enable investment in a more profitable future.

Great expectations.

Take expectations.

Homeowners don't know what they should, or what we'd want them to, but they are more discerning than they were.

That, combined with greater competition, raises their expectations which impacts on installers, and on fabricators.

House Builders, Housing Associations and Local Authorities have become much more demanding too.

As expectations of fabricators have risen, they expect more from systems companies to enable them to compete.

According to Neil Parsonson of Rigby Research, which tracks what fabricators want and what they get from systems companies, fabricator expectations have gone up every single year since 1994.

Greater expectations mean greater investment in product development, product upgrades and new products to extend the range; in colour; in extrusion facilities to meet tighter tolerances and improved quality which translates into fewer fabrication and installation problems.

Investment in additional capacity means fabricators can continue to grow; in delivery services so customers can run lower stocks and make product when they want to without disruption.

Investment in marketing support and technical literature; in technical and commercial contract support; and in the professional management and people to make it all happen is also required.

It's a long and costly list, and if your systems company is struggling to compete it won't have that money to invest and stay in the game.

And you will know about it.

Questions like: 'where is the new product you promised?' 'Where is my new literature? It's been months since we saw the sales rep' are early warning signs.

Soon, there will be another name to talk about in the after-show bars.

Spare a thought for the fabricators.

But after the game of 'whatever happened to systems company X' is over, spare a thought for their customers, the fabricators who had to live with the consequences of their exit.

It is a well documented fact that most acquisitions and mergers fail, often damaging the acquired and acquirer, sometimes fatally.

But the impact can also harm their suppliers and customers.

The more abrupt and ill-prepared the changeover, the more damaging the effect is on customers.

Most acquisitions and mergers fail because of a conflict in cultures and values, and the same is true of their customers.

Fabricators choose systems companies for products, but also for values that match their own.

When fabricators find their new suppliers don't understand them, have a different set of priorities, are distant and uncaring or leave them on their own to put up with the problems of the merger, their business suffers.

What they had and took for granted, they now miss and value.

Good home for Marshall Tufflex fabricators.

But when Marshall Tufflex decided to get out of window profile extrusion and focus on its core cable management and rainwater systems it made it a priority to find a good home for its loyal fabricators.

Customer relationships had always been paramount for the company and it had no intention of doing a deal and leaving its fabricators to sink or swim with a new supplier.

Marshalls needed to find the right partner to withdraw professionally and, eventually, identified a best fit for itself and its fabricators with Spectus.

It looked at the technical criteria, the ability to invest in innovative new products, the focus on quality, a high commitment to best practice in manufacturing, service and support, and the marketing to help its customers grow.

But Marshalls also looked for evidence of good long term relationships and shared values.

We, Marshall Tufflex and Spectus, then met each customer to explain what Marshalls planned and what we hoped would happen.

We listened to each fabricator and got to know them.

There was no rush; we took our time so fabricators could think calmly and rationally about the changes and the questions they needed to ask.

We talked about products and product development, about investment, service and support, but the emphasis was on the relationships and values that mattered to them.

Shared values, mutual respect.

Was it an acquisition or a merger in the conventional sense? Not really, it's been more like a courtship, a coming together based on shared values and mutual respect.

Will it catch on? That I can't say, but it has proved its value as an alternative, fabricator-friendly exit route for systems companies who no longer see their future in the window industry.

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