Plain saling

If you suddenly find you’re in need of a caffeine kick while driving through Sunbury-on-Thames in Surrey, stopping off at Kem Edwards may not be your best bet. Not that the family wholesalers would purposefully send you away parched, but they do have a tendency to flog their own kettle to contractors every now and then.

Managing director Richard Edwards laughs: “We’ve had people phone us in the evening with a broken kettle and an important meeting the next morning, so we’ve boxed up ours and couriered it over. That’s how you develop good will.”

In total, Kem Edwards supplies 15 000 product lines, mostly to major contractors such as the Bailey Group, Spie Mathew Hall (formerly AMEC Building Services), Crown House Technologies and Haden Young. The firm has a strong relationship with its customers, so much so that it won this year’s NG Bailey productivity award.

The company’s turnover is set to hit the £10 million mark this year, and it’s not down to minor kitchen appliances. A devotion to innovation within the m&e sector is what really gives Kem Edwards the edge against competitors.

“It’s keeping us ahead of our peers in a commodity market,” explains Richard. “We tend to have a yes attitude that gets us involved in all sorts of things. It’s exciting and you learn something new every day.”

As Richard talks, he is busy playing with various pieces of plastic conduit, slotting in spigots to create a host of different boxes. The snap-together system is one of at least 50 pioneering new products stocked by Kem Edwards, most of which are designed to help workers save time or reduce waste, storage space and safety risks.

“I’m a frustrated inventor,” he admits. “When they first come in, I feel as if I’ve devised them myself and sit trying them out for ages.”

Richard certainly knows his stuff. Before joining his father’s business, which has now been up and running for more than 40 years, he gained a qualification in engineering and has always been passionate about introducing value-added services into the industry.

“We supply low-value commodity products into a service-orientated industry, so we have to be quick and competitive. But what we’ve tried to do in the last few years is make our service to customers more strategic, so that they consider savings on labour costs and not just the prices of products,” he says.

Persuading buyers to step up their initial investments is not always an easy mission. In an ideal world, the sales team would prefer to offer their products to engineers, but many contractors do not allow this.

“Often, we’re not allowed on site by the purchasing manager, which is unfortunate as it means people aren’t buying into the technology. A lot of purchasers only consider short-term costs,” says Richard.

The big wholesalers are lazy. I always think, ‘For God’s sake, do something. The answers are sitting in front of you.’ But they just let us find the innovations

Kem Edwards is planning to open a showroom area next year, so that customers can view new products in action. As we enter to take a look at what is on offer, Richard is admonished by account manager Les Robinson for referring to the gas nailer as a “nail gun”. Apparently, this isn’t very PC, and the odd enterprising bank robber has used this type of tool in the past to break through bullet-proof glass.

Yet as Les darts around blasting brackets onto concrete and steel, one suspects he might well be busy picturing himself in the opening scenes of a new heist film. “He sometimes forgets there’s another 14,999 products to sell,” Richard jokes.

Richard feels the UK m&e market is aeons behind that of mainland Europe, when it comes to innovation. He holds up Datwyler’s Ecobus modular power system. The product has been available on the Swiss market for 40 years, yet Kem Edwards claims to be the first wholesaler

in this country to get hold of it, and has only done so recently.

“The big wholesalers are lazy. I always think, ‘For God’s sake, do something. The answers are sitting in front of you.’ But they just let us find the innovations and create the demand, then price us out of existence,” says Richard. “We’re like the second division championship bringing in the young players and nurturing them for the big teams.”

One of Kem Edwards’ greatest successes came from tapping into the increasing popularity of pre-assembled goods in 2004. The firm realised that when customers were cutting the 6 m-long pieces of Unistrut they stocked, there was a common range of lengths that could be standardised.

“You get a better-quality product as it’s made in a controlled environment. There’s none of the health and safety risk associated with doing it on site. And with the shortage of labour in the market at the moment, we’ve hit a major artery,” explains Richard.

Pre-cutting the Unistrut also reduces waste, an important factor in the light of the government’s site waste management plans.

The company professes a commitment to sustainability. It was awarded the ISO 14001 Environmental Standard four years ago, and was the first distributor member of the UK Green Building Council. And if you’re at a loss as to what to do with all those boxes, Kem Edwards is currently setting up a recovery and recycling programme for the palettes in which its products are delivered.

Staff are encouraged to uphold the green philosophy and drive around in Toyota Prius hybrids instead of the usual slick company gas-guzzlers. But one can’t help feeling they may be suffering from a bit of an inferiority complex – the business next door specialises in Panther sports cars.

Take a tour through the Kem Edwards showroom with the company’s top five innovative products