If I were to describe this year in a single word it would be “cruel”.
Our industry has lost a lot of names and brands this year, some very well-known and with genuine history and heritage. All parts of our supply chain have taken a hit without exception. Tough trading conditions, tougher than we perhaps thought they might be at the start of the year, and certainly tougher than the industry seems unwilling to admit in public, have taken it’s toll.
Sadly, Dempsey Dyer, a company founded in 1977 in Pontefract, West Yorkshire, is to close its doors later this week.
Dempsey Dyer to close
Word began to spread about the fate of Dempsey Dyer at the back end of last week when staff on Linkedin began to publish posts about their demise and looking for new employment.
In the posts it states that Dempsy Dyer are due to close their doors at the end of this week. It would mark the end of a 47 year history in which the company grew out of Pontefract in West Yorkshire to become very well known throughout the country.
Dempsey Dyer fabricates both PVCu and timber windows and doors, and serve both the residential and commercial sides of the fenestration sector.
The Dyer family are also well-known throughout the sector and are well-respected members of the fenestration community. No doubt the family and indeed employees at the business will be deeply saddened at the events unfolding.
Wider industry problems
Seeing a near 50-year-old company decide to close its doors is a sad thing to see. Companies of that age are not a common thing in the wider fenestration sector. But, what it does demonstrate is that no one is immune from the very hard trading conditions we find ourselves in.
2024 has been a frankly torrid year for our sector, with what seems like an almost relentless stream of companies going into administration. The first 6 months were particularly brutal. I was speaking with an industry friend earlier in the year and we both agreed that the last time things were like this was during the 2008/2009 financial crisis and the huge recession that brought on. The difference this year is that we were not in the type of recession that we saw in 2009. The financial landscape is different now, with a cost of living crisis, inflation and wars being the order of the day.
As I write this, there are rumours about the fate of another very large business in our sector. What is concerning is that Q1 is generally when we see casualties due to tax bills not being able to be paid. As we head towards the end of the year, it does look like we’re going to see a continuation of the turmoil we saw at the start of the year.
2025 for our sector is going to be hard. The recent Budget saw a number of measures, including tax increases and wage rises which are going to cause inflation across the economy and our sector. Our margins are going to be squeezed and costs are going to have to be passed down to the consumer. Job losses are likely and any further interest rate cuts are probably now off the table for a while.
To find success next year we are going to have to be agile, creative and proactive. Marketing is going to be the single most important thing you can do over the next 12 months. This is not the time to bury your head in the sand, no matter how tempting that is.
I hope that everyone at Dempsey Dyer can pick up new roles as swiftly as possible and I wish the best to the owners of the business going forwards from here.
To get weekly updates from DGB sent to your inbox, enter your email address in the space below to subscribe:
By subscribing you agree to DGB sending you weekly email updates with all published content on this website, as well as any major updates to the services being run on DGB. Your data is never passed on to third parties or used by external advertising companies. Your data is protected and stored on secure servers.
