EDIT Interview psi aug21_PSI_mar15 26/07/2021 15:39 Page 2
INTERVIEW
Expanding business This month we talk to Michael Lawrence, Regional General Manager UK&I at ADI Global Distribution to find out more about the company’s move into a new technology market sector and its plans for the future SI caught up with Michael last year just after the first lockdown ended in the summer, which meant that the second one wasn't even in anyone's mind at the time. This time around we met him just before the originally proposed Freedom Day of June 21st to find out what had happened with ADI since our 2020 chat.
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How did the market fare during lockdowns? The business has done really well through the pandemic staying open throughout, which was really pleasing and I think we've seen a level of resiliency, in a similar way to what the whole industry has. We lost minimal trading time at a couple of our branches as a result of the need for staff to isolate. The businesses itself has really been positive and we've continued to launch new brands and new products in that time. In addition, we have continued to invest, both in terms of people and infrastructure and as we're now [at the time of the interview] coming out of Q2, we're really positive about the future. You didn’t even reduce the number of staff working in the warehouse? We've actually added heads into the UK business this year and we've continued our expansion into Ireland adding heads there too. Our overall inventory investment in the business has increased quite substantially and that is enabled by the fact we've been in a purposebuilt facility for nearly two years after we had outgrown our previous premises. And if you look at our expansion, particularly into the professional Audio and Visual range, with the likes of 86” and 100” large format displays, that is business we could only develop and invest in by having this new facility in Greater Manchester.
the warehouse at each branch that supplements the offering from our hub. We want to have training facilities in all regions plus hospitality facilities for staff and for customers. We have further branch relocations planned for later this year and over the next few years in addition to investing in refurbishments and upgrades in all locations. It’s great that the global ADI business is backing us financially with these investments. Five years on from the Brexit referendum has there been any impact on business or is the picture muddy due to the pandemic? Brexit in Q1 2021 caused challenges for any business that exported products out of the UK, or imported products from the UK. We have a global trade compliance function so with that skill set in-house we were able to mobilise quickly and our freight partners did a really good job. Like most businesses there were some challenges to overcome; moving product into Ireland was where we saw the main challenges, but problems with bringing products into the UK were quickly overcome. We were also able to help a number of our larger installers manage their cross border projects. As we see it today, Brexit isn't really on the agenda.
“We have further branch relocations planned for later this year and over the next few years in addition to investing in refurbishments and upgrades in all locations”
What will you do about branch design? Will you have product out front or not? The model in the Oldham branch and in our new branches in Kingsbury and Dublin are all of the 'new' style with stock displayed front of house to show installers the full range of products we can offer, supported by a substantial holding in
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