Fight
on Quality not Price, Network Members Urged
Network
VEKA members have been urged to go on offering quality and added value
as the best defence against being dragged into the price wars that threaten
to devastate the industry.
Managing
Director John Ogilvie (pictured left) said many players were guilty of
‘a remarkable piece of self-harming’ by engaging in mindless
price-fighting.
‘We've all heard of panic-buying,’ he told a record crowd of
over 150 delegates and guests at the organisation's AGM, at the Marriott
Forest of Arden.
‘What we are seeing in the industry today is panic-selling... the
inexplicable phenomenon of traders trying to limbo under each other's
plummeting job quotations, then wondering why they go bust when they are
so busy.
He advised: ‘What we can do as Network VEKA members is continue to
offer products and services with the kind of genuine, visible added value
that will put clear blue water between us and the price-fighters and enable
us - and our products - to stand head and shoulders above them.
‘Let them squabble; let them cut their own throats. If we hold our
nerve and go on believing 100% in what we are, what we offer...and what
we are worth, then an overwhelming majority of us will still be around
after they are long gone.’
Industry analyst Mike Rigby echoed John's comments, adding his own call
to members to look to diversification and emerging markets for future
prosperity.
Some national players had grown by moving into other home improvement
areas while the one that stuck with windows had shrunk dramatically, he
told delegates.
He forecast growth in markets such as older and disabled homeowners and
future innovations like remote and central locking systems, then concluded
by telling members:
‘Network VEKA is a fantastic package. It is not just best in class;
it is still more or less the only one in its class.
‘Life without Network VEKA is going to be very hard for those who
try to go it alone.’
VEKA unveils plan for stronger Network bond
VEKA
has drawn up a four-year strategic plan for strengthening its relationship
with Network VEKA and developing new ways for the two organisations to
work together.
The plan, unveiled by VEKA's Head of Sales & Marketing, Colin Torley
(pictured right), will see the manufacturer exploring ways to promote
the Network more actively among existing and future customers and to involve
members more in VEKA's activities, including possibly its traditionally
strongest area of commercial contracts.
‘We want to look at every possible way we can develop our relationship
for the benefit of both organisations,’ he told members at the Network
VEKA AGM.
But he assured them the changes would never compromise Network VEKA's
autonomy:
‘However this plan unfolds, we will continue to respect that hard-earned
independence that runs through every principle of Network VEKA and sets
you so uniquely above the manufacturer-owned schemes.’
He concluded: ‘We have taken the first steps on what we know will
be a long and very beneficial journey for both organisations.
‘For VEKA and for Network VEKA, I have no doubt at all that the best
is yet to come.’
Network salutes its champions
Network VEKA once again rewarded each region's top member as calculated
from the Customer Satisfaction Survey, covering every installation by
every member throughout the year:
Scotland
- Thistle Windows & Conservatories
NE & Yorkshire - Hallmark Windows (Harrogate)
North West - Eddisbury Construction
Midlands - Trent Valley Window & Door Co
East of England - NPS Glazing Systems
South East - Piper/Elephant Windows
South West - Heavers of Bridport
South of England - KJM Group
Wales - Gardinia (West Wales)
Channel Is & Ireland - Creative Windows & Conservatories
This year's awards, presented by Steve Davis, make it a seventh win for
Thistle, Hallmark and Heavers, a third for Gardinia and a second for Eddisbury
and NPS.
They're off!
Partners and other guests swelled the ranks to more than 250 for the evening
entertainment.
Continuing the theme of the event's title, 'Ahead of the Race,' ladies
competed for the best Ascot-style hats and diners gambled play-money on
virtual races before dancing into the night.
Snooker legend Steve Davis, who is Network VEKA's brand ambassador, took
part in a number of charity events, taking on draw winners at frames of
pool, autographing cues and even the pool table for auction and led diners
in a game of Heads & Tails.
A
record 150 delegates attended the Network VEKA AGM (left), this number
swelled to 250 for the evening's entertainment, which had a racing thene
(being Derby Day) and one of the charity events was an opening game of
heads and tails (picture right)
Where
there's smoke...
Delegates enjoyed an unexpected 'smoke-break' at the AGM - and so did
all the other hotel guests and staff - when a bid to end the meeting with
a bang fell foul of a communications breakdown.
Loud applause and the crackle of stage fireworks were soon drowned out
by the sound of the fire alarm when it transpired the hall's smoke detectors
had not been isolated in preparation for the pyrotechnics.
As several hundred people evacuated from the hotel, delegates had the
chance to recall the run of bad luck that seems to have struck so many
past venues.
There was the Motorcycle Museum that burned down only days before the
planned event, Manchester United's Old Trafford ground the year the grass
died and the radio presenter who was rushed to hospital only hours before
he was due to compere one AGM, not to mention the Granada Studios venue
and Jaguar's Browns Lane HQ that both closed down soon after the meetings
were held there.