Dr Sachin Saigal, Managing Director, Avocet Hardware Group
Facts and Figures:
First Job: Resident doctor
Most useful/favourite gadget: My phone, although it can also be my worst enemy!
Favourite Website: Financial Times
Favourite restaurant: Opheem Birmingham, amazing Indian food!
Business person you admire: I get inspired by many people in business, for example Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffet and Elon Musk for different reasons. But I admire the many qualities of my colleagues, employees and customers also. It’s important to me that I try and learn from everyone I meet.
What business lesson have you learnt over the last 12 months? That the industry is crying out for consistency and being easy to work with. Too many external pressures are challenging businesses daily and we needed to be slicker and more effective in delivering quality and service levels that surpassed expectations. 2022 was a crucial year for us to achieve those goals and we’re looking to expand on that in 2023.
What is your best business decision? This is actually very easy to answer. We invested heavily in infrastructure and technology to help us attain our goal of being the easiest company to deal with. Development of our QuickTrade ordering app, invoice portal and other automated functions have helped put us at the top of the tree.
Other interests: I’m a dedicated Dad so time with my kids is important. I’m also a bit of a foodie and love exploring new cuisines.
Working Day:
Genuinely, my working day can be very different and I think I’m the same as many in my position, lots to do and never enough hours! I try and split my time between being office based and out on the road, normally 3 days office-based and 2 days visiting customers. Our business is very diverse so I have to keep my eye on all the different divisions and jump in when needed. That’s a lot of plates to spin!
As is the nature of business, I have lots of Zoom calls through the day with our overseas suppliers as I’m very involved in the sourcing and purchasing of product. I try and make sure that regardless of daily workload, I do a minimum of 10k steps as it’s important to me to maintain a good healthy lifestyle regardless of work pressures. Walking is good for my health and helps crystallise my thoughts.
THE INTERVIEW
We’ve all had to work under extraordinary external pressures over the last few years and I’ll be honest, it’s pushed us all to our limits. How could any of us have foreseen that off the back of the worst pandemic the UK has seen since the Spanish Flu over 100 years ago, we’d have to contend with a war and an economic crisis that has stretched businesses and individuals to breaking point.
Immense pride
Despite all of this, I look at 2022 with immense pride because even with all of these factors, Avocet grew sales across our divisions, launched new products and delivered on our Makes Things Easy pledge. And we’re planning for 2023 to show further growth, but not without some real hard work and commitment from our management team.
It’s my role and that of my board, to support the team with these ambitious plans and that’s why we made the decision in 2022 to invest nearly £1m in technology and changes to our infrastructure to help attain our growth plans. We’ve also hired in key areas such as supply chain and warehouse to expedite our plans and provide a better service to our customers.
Nobody can foresee the future, the market is changing constantly, material costs rise and fall, transport costs seem to be a law unto themselves, but I firmly believe you can control the destiny of your business if you operate with a plan of diversity.
Take for example what Avocet is renowned for, suited door and window hardware and our high security ABS range of cylinders. We could maintain the status quo and continue providing these great products with little to no change, after all they’ve served us well for decades. But at Avocet we recognise that standing still is the death knell of every business.
ARC Smart bar system
In 2022 we launched our all new ARC Smart bar system at FIT Show to much fanfare. Our venture into the smart world was not something that we did lightly, the investment was great and the R&D extensive. We had belief that we had developed something truly unique and we’re delighted to see ARC doing so well in the marketplace. We’re continuing to add to our premium hardware range with the addition of high-end stainless steel pull bars available in a range of colours as well as our stunning new rose lever hardware, designed to cater for those who don’t wish for back-to-back bar systems.
We have plans for 2023 that include some real exciting developments for our customers. Across our divisions, we’re looking to ramp up the customer service and associated marketing support. I’m very excited by our ABS Partner Network for instance, which our ABS department has put a lot of planning and effort into during 2022 with a concerted launch coming in 2023. You can be sure to see more about that in the news over the next few months.
Learnt a lot since I took over
I’ve learnt a lot since I took over the reins in 2021 and I’ve seen how the industry has had to negotiate the peaks and troughs of a volatile economy and the biggest lesson learnt is no matter how bad it is for large companies such as ours, our customers have had it much worse and were looking to their suppliers for help. That really stuck with me and helped solidify a plan for Avocet moving forward.
And so it is our pledge that 2023 is the year of our customer. All of our efforts are being directed towards providing a superior customer service experience both in quality of product and marketing support. We will be the supplier you can rely on and can ask for help.
It’s these initiatives and new products that make me feel very confident that 2023 will be another great year for the Avocet group and more importantly, all Avocet customers.
Tel: 01484 725645
www.avocet-hardware.co.uk
