Ten specialist UK manufacturers have formed an unusual consortium in which they abandon the normal codes of commercial confidentiality, passing to each other contact details about customers and suppliers, with a view to building up sales for the group as a whole.
The most important pieces of information passed on invariably come not through electronic networks, but via scraps of market intelligence communicated during informal monthly meetings at each other’s premises.
“We had a few arguments to start with but we’ve gradually built up trust and learned to work with each other,” says David Spears, managing director of Brandauer, a parts manufacturer which is one of the 10 members of the five-year-old alliance, called the Midlands Assembly Network (Man).
Steve Blower, managing director of Wrekin Circuits, a maker of printed circuit boards, says: “Normally in business you win sales solely as a result of your own endeavours. With our system, you have the combined efforts of 10 companies working on your behalf.”
The businesses – all based in or around Birmingham – are each in a specific area of metals-related manufacturing with a set of skills that does not conflict with other members.
“It’s important that no-one competes with each other directly, which is a vital factor in keeping disagreements to a minimum,” says Gerry Dunne, managing director of Westley Engineering, which makes metal pressed parts.
Mr Spears says of the individual enterprises in the group that all are “widget makers with the ability to do something different”.
His 149-year-old business last year made 1.4bn tiny metal components for goods such as electric sockets and plumbing fittings, with 30 per cent of its expected £10m sales this year likely to come from China.
Read the entire article at The Financial Times (ft.com)
