How Best To Judge Success This Year

This time last year, I am sure all of us were hoping for a better year than 2024. A year disrupted by an election, a sector battered by endless bankruptcies and administrations, with the after-effects of inflation and the cost of living hitting our customer base.

Sadly, 2025 has not turned out to be the turning point year many hoped it would be. Who thought a new Government could actually make things worse than they already were?

So, as we look back at yet another unstable year, how best can we judge success?

Not going backwards

The vast majority of companies up and down our supply chain set targets for the coming year. No doubt many of us have already done it for 2026. I suspect, as is usually the case, sales figures for 2025 were meant to be better than 2024. I also suspect those sales figures aren’t hitting the targets like we all hoped.

I know from my own conversations with my own suppliers and contacts that most of the sector is down on 2024 to some degree. Some a little, some more than that. But we are in a very difficult market right now, so it isn’t a surprise to be hearing these things.

Some of us, though, have managed to keep track of the previous year. And in my eyes, that in itself is a win. In a market that is generally down, if your business has managed to achieve the same sales figures as the year previous, take that as a win. You haven’t gone backwards like much of the sector might have. Any meaningful growth this year would have been very difficult to achieve, so at least maintaining the level you’re at in a hard market is definitely a positive. Perhaps not what many of us had intended for this year, but times are tough, and we have to be pragmatic in times such as these.

Steady staffing

One thing that has been sad to see this year is the sheer number of people who have been made redundant from companies, either cutting back or falling into bankruptcy. It feels like every time I open LinkedIn, there is someone else posting that they are looking for work. It’s not a great sign.

That being said, if your company has managed to maintain the same staffing levels as you did in 2024, or even manage to add on a few extra people this year, then that is great news. It means your business has remained stable in a very unstable market, and perhaps managed to squeeze out just enough growth to take on a few extra people.

Employee churn is often a sign of the health of a company. In the age of social media that we now operate in, it is easy to establish a sense of whether a company is doing well or not by just looking at who is coming or going from a company.

So if you have managed to maintain the same headcount in 2025 as 2024, then you can definitely count that as a win.

New products

Innovation, even in difficult times, is still an important part of any business. It is tempting to cut budgets, become conservative and defensive for fear of losing fiscal control.

But withdrawing in a recessionary market only makes things worse. One thing all companies can do in our supply chain, be it installers, fabricators, systems companies, glass companies, etc, is to bring new products to the market. New products create new opportunities, which is arguably more important in hard times than good times.

New products cost time, money and resources. All very precious things during difficult trading conditions. So if you’re a manufacturer who has managed to bring a new product, or more than one, to the market this year, then this is also a win. You’ve had the faith and stability to be able to invest in new opportunities, not only for yourself but for your installer customers to whom you also have a responsibility to support.

In fact, the number of new products and innovations this year has been very impressive. I would go so far as to say that we’re actually in an age of supreme product innovation, not only just in 2025 but spanning the last couple of years as well. The industry has seen a huge number of new products and updates come to the market in the last few years, which I believe is helping to professionalise the sector, especially in the aluminium part of the market.

Planning for 2026

I’ve got to be honest, and I don’t think many would disagree, but 2026 may well look very much like 2025. Economic growth for the UK looks pretty anaemic for the next couple of years, and with a budget coming next week, which looks set to raise taxes across the board, it’s going to hit consumer confidence and spending yet again.

So how can a company plan for the coming 12 months? It is probably a copy and paste from this year to next. With growth looking stagnant, a subdued consumer base and business and consumer confidence low, we are faced with the same challenges.

Whilst that doesn’t sound all that sunny, the good news is that we have lived experience now in these types of conditions. We know what works for our businesses in these market conditions. We know that new products and innovations create new opportunities. We know (at least we should by now) how to keep costs streamlined and efficient. We know we have to market ourselves well and consistently to the general public.

Knowing “knowns” is sometimes a powerful weapon to have in our armoury. It allows us to look ahead with a certain degree of clarity, and lets us plan accordingly. That way, we can identify the routes all our businesses need to take next year and make the most of those.