Last year was a memorable time for Propbrook. The independent designer and manufacturer of lift components and fabricated assemblies was celebrating its 30th anniversary while its new owner started to modernise its operations.
The Aston-based company was bought by Mark Fisher in 2008, who started a revolution at the business by implementing a new strategy to expand its product research and design facilities. And it seems that it was a successful plan.
“We had a reasonable year last year given the difficulties of the market,” said sales manager Simon Morgan. “The first week back has been tremendous and we are hoping that it will continue in that vein.”
He claims that the company has enjoyed a good few months due to the work it did last year in developing new customers. “It takes time to build it to a certain level of business and the ground work that we did last year paid dividends in the early part of September.”
Morgan took up his post at the company in September 2008 along with two other managerial appointments to drive Propbrook’s diversification.
Joining Morgan was new production manager Kevyn Wilson and project and design manager Brian Andrews. Morgan has several years sales and marketing experience and joined the company from another lift manufacturer. He was appointed to increase sales and oversee a new marketing campaign.
“My remit is to develop new business, to go out and find customers that Propbrook has not been working with in the past,” Morgan said. “I had to get out there and spread the word and inform people about what Propbrook could do and what we will be able to do in the future because we have a factory and machinery that could produce virtually anything. It is a case of getting out and spreading the word.
“Without the new customers that came on board last year business would have been down quite significantly but as it was, those that we did bring in were able to maintain us at such a level that we were at in the previous year. We are hoping that this year with the turnaround in the markets coming through to fruition that we are able to increase our market share and our turnover.”
Morgan is “very optimistic” for the year ahead. “We have also introduced some new products. Traditionally Propbrook was known for producing lift components as apposed to packages, but this year we will be able to offer customers a complete package, which is everything you would need to make a lift go up and down – the full installation.”
created: 19/01/2010 14:32:55 by
Business Report