Delivering our strategic growth objectives
Our 5 year Strategy maintains the objective of delivering sustainable growth. The main elements are:
- Continued focus on organic growth and investment - capital expenditure of around £35 million planned for 2022 to drive growth
- We are continuing to invest in digital and forward-thinking technology
- Increase in research and development and new product development to drive sales growth
- Renewed focus on increasing the profitability of the Emerging UK Businesses
- Continuing to target selective bolt-on acquisition opportunities in New Build Housing and Water Management
- Continued focus on customer service, brand, operational and manufacturing excellence and procurement efficiency
- Maintaining a strong balance sheet, a flexible capital structure and a clear capital allocation policy
- Maintaining a 2 times earnings cover dividend policy, enhanced by supplementary dividends where appropriate
Our vision
Our vision is to create better spaces and futures for everyone; socially, environmentally and economically.
Our mission
Our continuing mission is to deliver sustainable growth through a brand that drives customer specification of innovative product solutions for the built environment.
Strategic Priorities
- Brand preference for product specification
- Logistics excellence
- Sustainable materials supply
- Customer centricity
- Operational excellence
- Innovation & new product development
- Growth in the emerging businesses
- Digital transformation
Developing strategy
The impact of COVID-19 has presented many challenges, but we remain confident that our strategy is the right one, with built-in flexibility such that the pace of delivery can be adjusted for external uncertainties. We remain committed to the 2025 Strategy as our driver for growth.
Brand preference for product specification
We aim to create product specifications by using our strong brand, communicating well with our customer segments and early involvements in any project
Our objectives
- To build relationships and increase engagement with consumers, developers, builders and architects.
- To widen our presence and increase product specification, project pipeline and project conversion.
- To build brand preference through NPD, marketing and innovation.
What we have achieved
- Improved process mapping and measurement.
- Improved capability to leverage NPD with additional capability and capacity from the dual block plant project at St Ives.
- Reintroduction of a strong marekting campaign.
Key 5-year strategic priorities
- To target greater penetration of all market sectors.
- To increase our range of innovative and sustainable products.
Logistics excellence
We put customer wants and needs first with direct, informed and professional deliveries
Our objectives
- To deliver logistics excellence with more efficient, lower emission vehicles and new technology across our full fleet.
What we have achieved
- Own fleet of over 230 vehicles, with a broad range of capability to meet every delivery requirement.
- Highly trained drivers.
- Acted swiftyly in response to market challenges in driver availability and wage inflationto ensure fleet stability.
- Customer order tracking service via online portal.
- Flexibility to meet delivery lead-time needs of customers.
Key 5-year strategic priorities
- To attract and retain talent.
- To create a Driver Academy to attract and retain HGV drivers.
- To optimise our delivery systems and processes.
Sustainable materials supply
We source and supply sustainable materials, products and solutions
Our objectives
- To create a sustainable and ethical supply chain that enables headroom for changes in demand and operates within our carbon targets.
What we have achieved
- Continued to source materials, depsite the many supply chain challenges, introducing alternative sourcing, flexibility and security.
- The majority of raw materials are sourced from within the UK.
- Centralised procurement team to optimise buying power and relationships.
- Our ethics, human rights and environmental commitments are never compromised.
Key 5-year strategic priorities
- To prioritise carbon reduction programmes.
- To reduce reliance on cement.
- To ensure long-term material supply availability.
- To ensure our ESG commitments are embedded in the supply chain.
Customer centricity
We want to have the best customer experience in the buildings material industry
Our objectives
- To grow the business by providing an outstanding customer service experience.
- To improve customer ease and embed an improvement culture.
What we have achieved
- Extensive communications to manage the challenges of Covid-19 and raw material shortages.
- Effective project management to measure improvement and deliver results.
- Reduction in quality complaints.
Key 5-year strategic priorities
- To improve our customer service scores across all business areas (target is to achieve a 90 per cent customer recommendation metric).
- To embed our 'customer centric' culture.
Operational excellence
We invest in our manufacturing facilities and industrial network and use the best tools, processes and systems
Our objectives
- To deliver operational excellence by improving we work and delivering new ways of thinking.
- To effectively manage our cost base and add value.
- To improve comeptitive advantage whilst providing market leading products and service.
What we have achieved
- Increased output in response to high demand despite the challenges of COVID-19 and material/labour availability.
- Ongoing network development programmeto improve operational efficiency.
- Wet press development - new investment in Scotland.
- Quality programme and ongoing reduction in waste.
Key 5-year strategic priorities
- To continue to standardise our operations and processes acrosss the Group and to improve asset utilisation.
- To improve workforce skills and attract and retain the best people.
- To reduce rectification and transportation costs.
- Further wet press development in other sites.
Innovation and new product development
We deliver market leading product innovation
Our objectives
- To create, new, innovative products that will drive the market forward.
- To develop best-in-class facilities, processes and products.
What we have achieved
- Dual block plant project at St Ives on track - two additional CBP face mix lines with advanced secondary processing.
- Established Enterprise Project Management Office to co-ordinate all project activity, efficiency and delivery.
Key 5-year strategic priorities
- To deliver dual block plant project completion by end of 2022.
Growth in emerging businesses
We make selective acquisitions to complement our business and help us advance into new and untapped areas
Our Objectives
- To grow our emerging businesses to help us expand into key growth areas.
- To develop clear plans for each business and deliver margin growth.
What we have achieved
- Using our commercial excellence framework, plans were created and deployed that delivered growth in both sales and profitability.
- Renewed focus on marketing, and rebranding the businesses and focusing on the solutions they deliver.
Future Priorities
- Continuation in sales and profit growth plans.
- Development of service offer to improve ease of doing business.
Digital Transformation
We are continuing to invest in digital and forward-thinking technology
Our Objectives
- To provide an end-to-end digital offering and to pioneer the digital standard for the industry.
- To move the B2B digital trading where this is possible with our customers.
- To ensure the planned upgrade and move of our ERP system the cloud. This will bring with a platform to digitise our processes optimising and transforming our ways of working.
What we have achieved
- D365 implementation project in progress - incorporating process improvement and optimisation.
- E-commerce platform now established- creating a cohesive, frictionless, user experience and a new complementary sales channel.
- Product augmented reality experience now live on the website.
- Developed digital solutions to allow for improved self-service.
Future Priorities
- To migrate all business units from our on-premise ERP system to the cloud.
- To develop automation and AI processes.
- To further improve our B2Bweb offering.
- To develop visualisation and QR technologies to enhance customer experience.
- To optimise and digitise any offline processes.
