There has been a lot of change at softwood product importer, processor and distributor Snows Timber in the past couple of years.
Arriving at its Towcester national sales office for a media day was a good opportunity to find out more about the company’s journey and its future plans.
The management team – Ian Church, managing director; Craig Willoughby, supply chain and operations director; and Adam Cray, finance director, completed a management buyout of the firm from the Bradfords Group in March this year. Bradfords had owned Snows since 1985.
Before and after the acquisition Snows, which can trace its roots back to the 1800s, has been on a path of change which has seen the depots numbers cut from four to two, a big influx of new staff and a rationalisation of product ranges.
“It has been an interesting two years,” said Mr Church, adding that changes were designed to make a previous loss-making business into a successful lean operation. The company, he said, was turning the corner and changes were starting to pay dividends.
“In October last year the decision was made by Bradfords to sell Snows,” said Mr Church. “I had a series of conversations with Craig and Adam and we came to the view that there was value in the business.”
At the time they did not have finances in place to buy the business and Bradfords entered negotiations with another party. But after successful meetings with investors they returned to the table with proof of funding and ultimately were successful in their bid.
At the same time Sydenhams purchased Snows’ Glastonbury site as a good fit for its portfolio.
“Bradfords got what it wanted, Sydenhams got what it wanted and we got we wanted,” added Mr Church.
Independence crucially meant new sales channels could more easily be opened up. “So many customers could not buy from Snows because we were viewed as a competitor to them [due to its links with Bradfords].” Not being attached to a builders’ merchant brand was a “big opportunity”, added Mr Church.
Background
Finance director Mr Cray joined Snows five years ago, having previously been with PwC. He was promoted to finance director just before last Christmas.
Mr Willoughby joined just two years ago from outside the industry, having completed 10 years at Sainsbury’s in distribution/ logistics and a spell at logistics specialist Wincanton.
Mr Church himself had spent 35 years in the Travis Perkins group, running TP’s Midlands region from 2004-11 and then PTS (Plumbing Trade Supplies) in the TP group. He joined Bradfords in December 2015, initially as operations director and then joined Snows as MD in 2017.
“In April 2017 I found a business trading out of four physical locations but it acted like a merchant and not a distributor. We basically had four businesses that ran independently. They had the same brand name and livery on trucks but that’s as far as it went. They had their own sales operations, logistics and milling operations. There was no consistency of products being offered and pricing structures were different.”
Mr Willoughby said the sites were also under invested, with the LGV fleet an average 12-15 years old. “All our major competitors like Metsa and SCA had one centre of excellence,” he said.
The company also wanted to make changes to its import and transport operations. It had been using Shoreham port, but timber faced a long journey to the Mansfield depot.
But the directors said Snows had always had some really good staff who were very experienced with timber products. “We were just somewhat archaic in the way we operated,” said Mr Church.
Business changes and optimisation
Pricing structure and rationalisation of the product range are among significant changes.
Mr Church said it had been vital that Snows change what he called a “merchant mindset”, where it was willing to supply and machine anything for a customer. As an example, he said 37 versions of torus mouldings had been on the system.
The company has rationalised the number of lines to 500 core products, eliminating identical or near identical profiles.
It has reduced buffer stock to improve cash flow, making product visibility a lot clearer for sales staff and reducing product damage. And it has a smaller and “less confusing” catalogue.
He highlighted that previous timber ordering systems had resulted in Snows stocking large volumes of timber lengths the company did not need. “We were paying a lot in quay rent as there was so much wood there. We had to do a lot of spot buying to fill the specification gaps.”
Project Gallop was the name of the initiative, started in January 2018, to improve the business structure and efficiencies.
This involved exiting the Dudley site in June 2018 and opening up the Towcester centralised national sales office, with a new sales team recruited.
Inevitably with so much change, Mr Church conceded that they didn’t always get the balance right.
“New sales staff that came here were from a customer-focused background but they had very little timber knowledge,” he said. “Initially, we should have got the timber knowledge quicker to staff, so that disappointed some customers.”
Some initial customer interactions did not go well so consequently the team had to win back trust.
A further structural change was ending production operations at Andover, with Mansfield becoming a single site for manufacturing. Andover concentrated on distribution to the south region and Mansfield the north.
Some £750,000 was invested by Snows in its sites and upgrading equipment last year and a new transport scheduling system was introduced. “Routyn” by Wide Scope, has resulted in big delivery efficiencies. Snows was the first company in the UK to introduce it and won the award for Innovation at the Logistics Leadership Awards last year.
“The independent timber and builders’ merchant is our core customer, but we do service national groups for top-ups as well,” said Mr Willoughby.
“We can also deliver direct to our customer’s customer,” he added. “We do a lot of deliveries direct to site – this is a message that is spreading and we are seeing a lot more dots on the map now [including Scotland] in terms of places we are delivering to,” added Mr Willoughby.
Snows is positioning itself for next day delivery, which is currently on trial with several customers where it is reportedly working well.
“It’s about efficiently planned deliveries,” said Mr Willoughby.
Reduced product damage, a speeding up of orders and flexibility in delivery options (not just half or full loads) are some of the new benefits cited by directors.
New products and the future
Product innovation has also been a high priority, with Snows recently launching the US-made TimberTech wood-plastic composite decking on the market.
Its partnership with TimberTech manufacturer AZEK Building Products sees the introduction of a four-sided capped composite from the TimberTech PRO line of decking to Snows’ decking portfolio.
It also supplies exclusively Provincial Plank, a Canadian FSC-certified hardwood plank walling product designed to give a natural and rustic texture to interiors due to its varied colours and textures.
Flame retardant treated products are also being seen by Snows as a big potential future growth area.
All three directors are bullish about the future and believe the market for construction materials will remain strong. Being an independent company and able to respond quickly to market demands is a massively important development for Snows, they say.
Mr Church said he was aware of the many rumours in the market about Snows during the past two years of changes.
“There have been lots of rumours – we have been going bust, being taken over, but we have sat back and laughed and sometimes got frustrated. We are on a very strong financial footing and the balance sheet is much stronger than before.”
The slimmed down operation inevitably means company turnover is lower than in the past – currently at around £22m, down from a peak of £40m.
“This is an OK business at the moment, but we can build a great business and we are going to make it into a great business,” added Mr Church.
