BTC spent a year looking for new premises in the area, having outgrown its current site two years ago, as Nigel explains: "Despite adding a mezzanine level in here, we still didn't have enough space, plus we'd ended up with stock at three locations, which just isn't convenient. This way everything will be under one roof."

The new Distribution Centre, which is situated just off Junction 9 on the M6, only a few miles away from the current premises, will be able to hold up to 10,000 pallets and £10M worth of stock, allowing BTC to go deeper into stock across all its brands. Investment in the move totals over £1M, and this gives the company room to grow for the next five to 10 years.

As well as the distribution side, the new centre will also house the Midlands sales office, admin and purchasing departments, a large showroom and a marketing office - all in a state of the art, open plan environment.

"The new site will revolutionise the way we do things," says BTC joint md Glenn Hyams. "A lot of thought and planning has gone into the logistics of it. Inside the warehouse will be eight docking bays and two larger loading bays, and there will be motorised tracks for the pickers and a conveyor belt to load orders onto the delivery trucks."

BTC aims to be out of its current premises by the end of the year, so planning for the move is well underway. At the time of writing, workers were fitting out the racking in the new warehouse, fitting out the offices and installing the IT systems, all of which is due to be finished by the end of November. "We won't be using new processing systems, as they were upgraded a year ago and are proving to be very successful, but we will have a new stock locating system with barcodes," explains Nigel. "We have taken on a lot of advice that will enable us to create many efficiencies in the new centre."

Some stock will start going over in November to enable the ordering systems to be tested and dummy runs to be carried out, but the bulk will be transferred over three days during the Christmas shut down, before normal business resumes on January 5th.

"It's a bold step in the current economic climate to make this move," says Glenn, "but it shows how confident the company is despite the economic downturn." He adds: "I started the business 20 years ago from a small room, so to see all this now is mind blowing."

New workwear brands

BTC's plans don't stop at the move into the new distribution centre, however. For 2009 it will be concentrating on the workwear market, taking on five new brands that are new to the printwear industry and exclusive to BTC. These are: Caterpillar, Helly Hansen, Mascot, Panoply and Snickers. The new brands will complement BTC's existing workwear brands of Dickies, Dennys, Kustom Kit and Yoko, and all will feature in BTC's new workwear brochure when it comes out in January.

BTC believes the (already large) workwear market has huge growth potential and has been growing rapidly in recent years. One of the benefits of workwear from a customer point of view is that once the garments are decorated they become fully tax deductable (because decoration technically makes the garment into a uniform) - something that a lot of garment decorators probably don't know about, says Glenn. "This is a big selling point for any printer, and the decoration can be as simple as a small trouser tab, but most don't know about it."

For the brands, taking on a new market like printwear is not as straightforward as you might think, says BTC, because the printwear market has very different requirements to those in retail. "Everyone is looking for new markets to exploit but it's not always that easy because retail is seasonal, whereas our market needs longevity and consistency," says Glenn. "We have to work closely with the retail brands trying to do this and have been influential in getting retail brands like Regatta, Ping and Umbro into our market and helping them to understand these needs."

For 2009 BTC will also be taking on Nike Golf, exclusive to the UK. According to BTC, Golfwear is also a relatively big sector, with the UK and Ireland accounting for around 50% of the total European market. "Together with the five workwear brands, this is a big investment in stock," says Glenn. "We are also developing our films and transfers offering - it's about being a one-stop-shop, and our customers like it because it can often help to make up their carriage-paid order."

BTC will also be upping the anti when it comes to its IT for 2009, with a host of new initiatives and bolt-ons to its marketing offers. These include an online ordering facility, which the company has been trialling for the past few months, to great success, says Nigel. "We have had a lot of great feedback about how easy it is to use," he says. "You can see stock live on the system and can start to build your order during the day and then add to it gradually. If you come back to it later and something has gone out of stock it will tell you. You can also make note of which products are for certain customers."

BTC is also offering a website for customers to use, marked up with their own prices. This all sounds great, but do printers and embroiderers make use of these services? Perhaps not as much as they should, says Nigel. "We have found that customers' knowledge about what's available to them in terms of marketing tools is limited. They just don't seem to be grasping the fantastic sales tools that are available to them, especially those on the web."

Yet in the future this could be crucial, as Nigel believes the use of printed catalogues will eventually start to decline as the benefits of web catalogues (such as being able to change or update them instantly) becomes more appealing. "Having said that, BTC's catalogue print run is currently increasing year on year, with the most popular being the catalogue with marked up prices," he says.

Next year's catalogues will be a much slicker operation, adds Nigel, with more flexibility. Customers will be able to choose from any of the cover versions in either un-priced or priced catalogues, giving a total of 14 options. "We have also worked on the despatch so we can get the catalogues out earlier and faster to more customers than ever before," adds Nigel. "The catalogue has doubled in size in just over two years, which gives an indication of the growth of the company."

Indeed, from next year BTC will have a stable of 35 brands and expects its sales to continue to grow. So what does it put this growth down to? "There has been a real buzz about the company for a while now," says Glenn, "and we've got a really great, hardworking and dedicated workforce. Our local sales offices play a big part in this success - customers like them - and we also have a very good set-up regionally, with both office-based and on-the-road staff. And of course adding new, exclusive brands helps to keep our USP."

Nigel adds that the company will be unveiling a new look before the end of the year, ahead of its 20th anniversary next year. "I think it's important to reinvent yourself regularly - just look at Madonna!" he says.

Indeed, Glenn credits a lot of the company's success to the marketing work of Nigel, who came on board two years ago "and has been really great". "I must also mention the IT team - John Wintle, Andre Walsh and Dan Turner - who are unbelievably brilliant and dedicated and have been a major factor in our success over the last two years," he says. "Not forgetting of course the other directors, Charles Grose and Steve Pope, who have worked tirelessly on this project and deserve more credit and accolade than they probably receive!"

Glenn adds: "It's a really exciting time for us, but we've got to make it work because at the end of the day our customers don't care about the state of the art facilities they just want the good customer service they are used to and for their orders to turn up on time!"

Tel: 0121 505 5177

Web: http://www.btcactivewear.co.uk/

Email: marketing@btcactivewear.co.uk

Printer friendly version

Email this article to a friend

Bookmark this

---