BDC Magazine - Edmundson Electrical Supplement - 2008

QUALITY PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

EDMUNDSON ELECTRICAL

EDMUNDSON ELECTRICAL

QUALITY PRODUCTS AND SERVICES rue to its name and its roots, Edmundson Electrical operates in the same general area that it always has done, although it has to some degree detoured away from its original business.

Founded in 1801 by Joshua Edmundson, the company was actually one of the first suppliers of electricity. It now leaves that to the giant utility companies and instead concentrates on distributing electrical equipment to trade and industry in the UK. And it does this so well that it is now one of the leading distributors of quality, branded electrical products in the country with over 250 branches.

Edmundson’s branches are located throughout the UK, with a widespread presence in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The network of branches has built up over the years, with some originally belonging to other companies that have been acquired. Many of these branches continue to operate under their original names while others now trade under the Edmundson Electrical banner.

Recent acquisitions include Jack Hinton Electrical of Wakefield, JSC Electrical Distributors with three branches in Dorset and Wiltshire, Sable Electrical Distributors with branches in Hinckley, Coventry and Birmingham, Pulse Electrical Distributors of Reading and JE Wildbore of Oldham.

All branches carry a comprehensive stock of electrical products, which are in the main innovative, high quality and cost-effective items that are sourced from the world’s leading manufacturers. This stock covers a whole range of products, including lighting, lamps, cables and cable management, control and automation equipment, ventilation,

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EDMUNDSON ELECTRICAL

EDMUNDSON ELECTRICAL

space and water heating units, emergency lighting, fire detection equipment, instrumentation and a whole lot more.

LEVEL OF COMMITMENT The reasons for Edmundson’s success are many, not least being its commitment to satisfying the needs of its customers. It values all its customers equally, irrespective of their size and the amount of business they bring. Every one is given the same level of commitment, ensuring a level of service that is comprehensive and provides great attention to detail. And the business does not stand still, constantly adapting to meet the needs of a market that is changing all the time.

Edmundson’s commitment is provided by the people at the sharp end, its branch staff, who are friendly, experienced and highly motivated. Working independently from any of the company’s suppliers, they are able to offer advice that is totally unbiased and is intended to find the most suitable solution for each customer’s specific needs.

Nevertheless, the company does have strong relationships with all its suppliers, ensuring that up-to-date information is always available on new products and emerging trends, and ensuring that all relevant information can be communicated to customers.

The branch staff are backed up by their local managers who are empowered to make all important business decisions within their own branch. This highly decentralised business philosophy means that enduring relationships can be built with both customers and suppliers at local level, which reflects back up the structure to give nationwide benefits.

Edmundson’s professionalism and breadth of experience enables it to serve customers in many sectors. These include electrical contractors and engineers, industrial and facilities management companies, government agencies, local authorities, power generation and construction companies, utilities, oil, gas and petrochemical companies, export markets, food industries, hotels, leisure and retail, and security companies.

ENCOURAGING COMMITMENT Like most companies, and especially those that have an active involvement with their customers, Edmundson is well aware of the importance of its staff in the company’s success. It encourages their commitment by ensuring that employees’ contributions are rewarded through a performance-related bonus scheme.

The company is always on the look out for suitable staff and, given its large number of branches, generally has opportunities for the right

EDMUNDSON ELECTRICAL

Edmundson Electrical is now one of the leading distributors of quality, branded electrical products in the country with over 250 branches.

EDMUNDSON ELECTRICAL

people. These opportunities range from branch-based managers and counter staff through to back-office administrators, warehouse operatives and inventory controllers.

In addition to counter sales and website ordering, some customers do prefer to place orders by telephone and so Edmundson has a telephone sales team to deal with this business. The team ensures that the company can meet the needs of all its customers, no matter how they wish to order.

REWARDING EFFORT Edmundson’s success has hardly gone unnoticed since it has gained several awards recently in recognition of its efforts.

EPH of Spalding received the Wholesaler of the Year award for 2007 at the Electrical Industry Awards Dinner. The award was assessed against various criteria, including sales and profit growth, staff training, supplier partnerships, new business initiatives and service initiatives. Manager Chris Mizen stated that he only entered the branch for the award after being persuaded to do so by several customers.

At an individual level, several trainees received recognition at the fifth EDA Learning and Development Achievement Awards, which took place at the Association’s annual dinner. These awards recognised the accomplishment of students in two categories of EDA Learning and Development.

Richard Ballantyne of Crawley branch achieved second place in the Product Knowledge category after completing four modules with distinctions in each one while Mieka Page of Derby branch gained fourth place for distinctions in three modules.

First place in the Apprenticeship category went to Christopher Lock of Peterborough branch, who completed a Customer Service apprenticeship. Angela Lafferty of SLD Scotland took second place after completing an apprenticeship in Business Administration while Daniel Atkins of Hereford branch came third after completing a Distribution, Warehouse and Storage apprenticeship.

EDMUNDSON ELECTRICAL

EDMUNDSON ELECTRICAL

Edmundson is also actively involved in encouraging up-and-coming people in the industry. Alexander Macnair of Trilectric Ltd was named the ECA Edmundson Apprentice of the Year. This event is run by the Electrical Contractors’ Association and has been sponsored by Edmundson Electrical for the past 32 years.

ENVIRONMENTALLY AWARE Edmundson Electrical is all too aware that what it does has an impact on the environment. It therefore has an environmental policy that sets out its commitment to lessen this impact by: • increasing its positive environmental impact • seeking to reduce the negative environmental impact of its operations wherever possible • complying with all legislative and ethical standards concerning care of the environment • whenever possible, sourcing and supplying products that have a low environmental impact • defining the methods for identification, control and disposal of products that have special handling and waste treatment needs • aiming for continual environmental improvement in respect of the products it sells, its internal use of resources and the prevention of pollution.

SAFE DISPOSAL Like all companies, Edmundson Electrical is increasingly affected by regulations and legislation. And since it deals in electrical goods, some of the regulations relate to how these are handled and disposed of – not least the WEEE regulations (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment). These aim to counter the potential harm to the environment, and to people’s health, caused by around two million tonnes of electronic and electrical equipment being thrown away every year in the UK. Edmundson Electrical is in fact classified as both a producer and a distributor for the purposes of WEEE. In its former capacity, the WEEE regulations require it to incorporate on all electrical and electronic equipment a symbol that indicates that the item should not be treated as normal household waste at the end of its life.

In order to ensure safe treatment and to increase the re-use and recycling of material, the company also offers in-store take-back for all waste electrical products. If the purchaser or account holder is the end user of the product, this is provided as a free service when a replacement product is purchased. A service is also provided so that commercial users can take back their waste. An alternative to this is for the customer to take their old electrical equipment to any designated collection facility for WEEE.

EDMUNDSON ELECTRICAL

EDMUNDSON ELECTRICAL

In its role as a producer, Edmundson Electrical is obliged to register with a Producer Compliance Scheme. It has therefore joined the WEEELink Producers’ Scheme, which entitles it to mark all its products with the scheme’s logo. All the company’s branches are licensed to accept hazardous waste that falls within the scope of the WEEE regulations, including fluorescent lamps, discharge lamps, refrigerators and CRT displays. Edmundson also holds waste carrier’s licences for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

ONLINE CATALOGUE Edmundson Electrical’s full range of products can be viewed through its online product catalogue, available via its website. But calling it a product catalogue possibly does not do it justice. By simply registering, anyone can have free and unlimited access to a veritable gold mine of information.

In addition to product details, the service provides a wealth of technical information, industry and trade news, details of available training and emailed newsletters and bulletins that supply vital data.

ELECTRICAL PORTAL Edmundson’s product catalogue is, it says, ‘powered by Voltimum’, which it describes as ‘the most comprehensive product data source for the electrical industry’. Voltimum does not, in fact, simply make avail-

able a product catalogue from which items can be ordered in the conventional way. Much more than that, it has been developed in such a way that users can design, specify and estimate complete electrical projects, making it a very useful tool indeed. In fact, Voltimum refers to it as a ‘product encyclopaedia’, which is backed up by associated information such as installation instructions, case studies, test certificates, photographs and so on.

And if that’s not enough, it also provides information about what is happening in the industry, including changes in legislation, new product developments and corporate news.

Voltimum was launched in February 2003 and is the result of collaboration between several major manufacturers in the electrical industry – ABB, Legrand, Nexans, Osram, Philips, Pirelli and Schneider Electric. Voltimum aims to be the leading business-to-business portal website for electrical installation professionals. It is not a trading portal and does not push particular brands. Instead, its main services are to provide: • a portal website and online service tool for all users • the ‘richest’ database for the electrical installation industry • an online marketing tool for manufacturers • the ability to drill down through levels to get detailed and specific information.

EDMUNDSON ELECTRICAL

Edmundson Electrical’s full range of products can be viewed through its online product catalogue, available via its website.

Voltimum is now available as six separate portals for different countries (the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden). At its launch, it featured 110 catalogues and 250,000 products plus 220,000 associated documents. It had 35 manufacturing partners and 80 brands with 500 wholesale outlet distributor branches (these now include those for Edmundson) listed in the directories.

There are now over 145,000 users (of which 75% are installers/contractors, 20% are specifiers and 5% are distributors) who undertake over four million page views each month. The number of registered users is growing by around 1,000 every month.

PRODUCT INFORMATION The major advantage of the Voltimum product catalogue is that it contains an awful lot of information about many extremely technical products. And since all the major manufacturers participate in the scheme, there are very few products that are not included. So, for a company like Edmundson Electrical, there is no need to create and maintain a product database that is both complex and very large.

Voltimum provides a linking system, known as VoltiLink, which distributors can use to provide a link to the Voltimum product catalogue from their own website. In this way, Edmundson’s customers can access all the products covered by the 34 brands that it deals with out of the 110 catalogues provided by Voltimum.

The product catalogues are typically accessed by installation professionals who are in the process of setting up a job. Users need to be registered (which is free) and must sign in each time they access the catalogue. They can then choose to access by manufacturer or type of product.

From a top-level product category, a user can drill down through ranges and brands to an individual product. At product level, the options are to obtain more information about the product or to look at the trade price list. This latter section provides a full product description and lists all product variations (such as different sizes) with a reference, description and wholesale price (if available). Clicking on a particular product shows a full illustration and more comprehensive description. At this stage, the user has the option to: • add the product to a project file and so build up a list of items that are needed for the project • contact the manufacturer by email in order to raise a question about the product; an answer is promised within one working day • download additional details, such as product specifications, data sheets, installation guides and catalogues containing the product • enter a quantity for the product and add it to the shopping cart along with other products. It is then possible to obtain a full quotation from the wholesaler, submit the order and print the order details.

The user can therefore build up the requirements for a particular project. And, due to the extensive information that is provided, they can be

EDMUNDSON ELECTRICAL

confident that they are selecting products that will do what they want – if they’re not sure, they can always ask the manufacturer. Once the project is fully specified, the order can be placed at a cost that is known.

TRAINING COURSES The Training and Continuous Professional Development (CPD) section, available through Edmundson’s VoltiLink, provides news of current courses that are available. These are offered through various training course providers and details are shown of what is covered by each course.

Users can search for particular courses, obtain full information for each one and so can book staff on suitable courses that ensure their skills are kept relevant and up-to-date.

NEWS AND EVENTS Various sections of the Voltimum offering provide news items of different types and are intended to keep users up-to-date with what is going on.

Many items are submitted by manufacturers and provide information about new and updated products, new publications, events, offers and awards, alerts and various other items of interest. Topics can be viewed generally or by manufacturer, showing the main theme of the item and allowing access to the full article.

Industry news items cover topics that are of interest to those in the electrical industry. These include general articles that provide profiles of people and their activities through to information about new legislation and regulations that are likely to affect users. Again, readers can browse through the topics and access the full text of articles that are of interest to them.

Trade association and industry body news receives contributions from various bodies, such as BASEC, NICEIC and BCA. They provide articles on subjects such as safe working practices, events, new releases and a wealth of other topics.

Email Service Anyone who registers for Edmundson’s product catalogue is automatically enrolled into their email service whereby various copies of VoltiNEWS and VoltiBULLETIN are sent out each month.

VoltiNEWS provides articles by email that cover industry news and events plus information on new products from leading brands. Recent articles have covered: • market reports on the wholesale and contracting market • courses for electrical contractors • breaking news stories from manufacturers.

VoltiBULLETIN examines important technical or legislative issues and recent editions have carried stories on: • cable core colours • Part P of the UK Building Regulations • certification schemes • Part L of the Building Regulations • use of mobile phones while driving • health and safety.

Back issues of all newsletters can be accessed from the website.

So, as a customer of Edmundson Electrical, not only do you have access to a comprehensive range of products and exceptional service, but you are kept fully informed of what is going on in the industry.

EDMUNDSON ELECTRICAL LTD P.O. BOX 1, TATTON STREET KNUTSFORD WA16 6AY TEL: 01565 700 100 FAX: 01565 652 649 EMAIL: edmundson@eel.co.uk WEB: www.edmundson-electrical.co.uk

BUILDING DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION ARE PROUD TO HAVE WORKED WITH EDMUNDSON ELECTRICAL AND WISH THEM ALL THE BEST FOR THE FUTURE

01484 546555

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