We have had a bit of bad news over the last week. First the confirmation that Britain is back in recession (though I would like to add that we won’t in recession for long), and then we got news that a big window company in Devon, Launa Windows, has gone into administration. Demonstrating that market conditions are still choppy and much hard work is still to be done.
However, I think that these latest bits of news doesn’t represent the industry as a whole. All the way through the year so far, there have been reports of strong growth from all parts of our industry and indications that things might be starting to improve. Personally, I haven’t had as many reports of companies going bust, which when you consider that January and February is the worst time for our industry is good news indeed. Whether your in manufacturing or installing, the news has been generally positive.
From our perspective, things are going quite nicely. In fact we reached our end of June Quarter 2 targets on Tuesday! That not gives us 22 weeks to reach the end of September targets. Hopefully we won’t need that many weeks. Either we’ve set our targets too low or we are selling more than expected. I would put it down to the latter because I looked at last years figures and then the predictions for this years and what was expected of the industry and I think the estimates were fair.
Other installers that I follow on Twitter have also reported record months and increased levels compared to the year previous. This is why I believe that this recession will only be a mini one. Economic conditions aren’t that bad, well, not as bad as 2009. Our industry is putting up a fight as well as others. We have to just keep this positive vibe going and get Britain back on the path of robust growth and prosperity!
Would like to hear some feedback about how your businesses are doing so far this year!
Congrats on the targets being met! Our place is doing well. We have introduced a bonus scheme (received mine today!) The only good(ish) thing to come from the economic climate is it has forced business to look at ways to reduce cost and improved productivity. We have improved our efficiency, changed the factory layout and found ways to reduce costs. We have been making savings on our budget month on month at around 2% a month. We have more plans in place and things are looking good. There have been changes in the management over the last year or so… Read more »
Business is a bit up and down but by no means a disaster. We seem to be doing much better than other local companies. The market for us has changed quite considerably, our order value has increased and we are selling much more colour products, aluminium has made a big come back and diversification into garage conversions and flat roofs has worked well. Enquiries for orangeries have risen substantially although I find we can put a lot of effort into quoting for them only for the customers ending up doing nothing. Maybe we should take a longer term view on… Read more »
I wonder if you have seen this months ‘Which’ report on Double Glazing Companies. The results are amazing. 83% customer satisfaction for independents with the highest from a national chain at 63%. And that’s from a sample 15 x as big.
It’s worth a £1 to sign up to the Which trial to see the results.