Smith Brothers secure Top 10 position
For the second consecutive year, Smith Brothers have made the top 10 in this year’s Leading Lights supplement as featured in the April edition of the Builder’s Merchants News.
What is the Leading Lights supplement?
The highly anticipated supplement gives readers a snapshot of how the merchant industry has performed throughout 2019, whilst also discussing a wide array of industry related topics.
The Leading Lights table consists of 30 merchants (who are operating at a national or independent level), and is comprised based on their growth, both financially and operationally. Smith Brothers are delighted to remain in the top 10 having recorded a turnover of £116.6m over the last financial year, a growth of 11.47%.
How did Smith Brothers reach the top 10?
Part of the growth Smith Brothers recorded in 2019 can be credited to the successful relocations of our Birmingham, Oldham and Rainham branches, where customers benefitted from increased stock holding and overall operational capacity. The company also introduced a team to support Northern Ireland based customers working in the UK.
The data collected for the table was compiled by Builders’ Merchants News representatives, who contacted merchants between January and March 2020 to gather accurate data whilst also collecting some publicly available information.
This year’s supplement opens with an exclusive survey by MRA research, who conducted telephone interviews with 100 merchants to ascertain their views on the industry. With these interviews taking place between January and March, the main concern amongst the merchants was the potential implications of ongoing Brexit negotiations as opposed to COVID-19. This highlights just has quickly the industry has had to adapt in recent months as we entered a global pandemic.
Keeping staff and customers safe
During the early stages of lockdown, Smith Brothers followed government advice and implemented measures to ensure the business could remain operational and available to support supply to critical sectors. This included implementing social distancing measures and increased cleansing, whilst restricting unnecessary travel and temporarily reducing staffing numbers through the governments furlough scheme – all steps to help significantly reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission and help keep both staff and customers safe.
Looking to the future
Despite the current economic challenges the industry continues to face, Smith Brothers have remained optimistic about the future with SBS Glasgow due to open in September and SBS Southampton being the next branch confirmed to relocate to a larger 25,000 sq ft premises. The added operational capacity will help satisfy the increased demand at the branch and will enable staff members to offer even better service to customers.
Click the link below to view the supplement in its entirety.
