INDUSTRYNEWS
L to R: Carmen Velilla, Brand Manager Spectus and PatioMaster;
Mark Bache, Finance Director; Clare O’ Hara, Managing Director; Martin Althorpe, Technical Director; Sharn Samra, Marketing Director; Gerald Allen, Brand Manager Profile 22.
‘ Waking a sleeping giant’
Managing Director of Epwin Window Systems Division, Clare O’ Hara, has outlined the company’ s plans for the future, after describing its products as already being‘ the most innovative and comprehensive product range on the market’ but with‘ a great deal more to come’.
»»“ WHEN I CAME TO EPWIN 18 months ago, the Window Systems Division was somewhat of a sleeping giant,” explained Clare when she was speaking to a group of the window and door industry’ s press, including Clearview and PRO Installer, during celebrations of the 40th Anniversary of the founding of the Epwin Group.“ Change was needed,” Clare continued,“ and I was fortunate enough to have the backing of Group to make the necessary investment to grow the business and support our customerbase.”
Offering a view of where the company is heading in the next period, Clare explained that the company’ s brands including Profile 22, Spectus, Swish, PatioMaster and Safeware are all thriving with major product and customer support initiatives brought to market or planned for each. With reference to Profile 22 Optima, one of the largest investments in Epwin’ s history, Clare described the launch as being‘ a great way to celebrate the company’ s birthday’.“ We have reacted to changes in the marketplace and invested in people as well as products and process,” she says.
The company’ s people are the most important asset, Clare stressed, as she introduced a number of new faces to the business, with customers being its greatest focus for which investment continues with new support systems and infrastructure. Of these, Epwin’ s new foiling plant anticipated the growing demand for coloured profiles with the company’ s brands all showing increasing market share as a result.“ And we now operate 26 vehicles that travel a combined total of 2 million miles each year, delivering our products nationwide,” Clare added.
Part of the investment in Optima included the installation of the most advanced extrusion lines available, which are making significant returns in respect of product quality, production efficiency and environmental impact.“ The investment in our Greiner extrusion lines makes a real statement about how committed we are to developing our brands. All our existing customers have now been converted to fabricate Optima, as of the end of last month. In fact, 65 % of our Profile 22 business is already Optima. The introduction of Optima has even allowed the us to regain business from lost fabricators, where they now fabricate 100 % Optima and Profile 22,” says Clare.
In addition to the launch of Optima, a range of new ancillaries has been launched for Spectus with new flush tilt and turn windows being introduced under Spectus and Profile 22. Swish and Spectus customers are now utilising new Marketing Portals through which they may order support materials and services. PatioMaster has benefitted from an extended range of colours with products now improved through the use of new profiles introduced for Optima.“ Feedback from our sales team is that where ever they go, there’ s always something for them to sell,” Clare enthused.
Investment will continue at a pace confirmed Clare with each brand benefitting from new products, marketing support and infrastructure:“ The 40th year of the company’ s existence has been exciting with so much change taking place to the company’ s infrastructure. We now look forward to refining what we do and how we do it with our customers reaping the benefits as we put customer experience at the heart of the business. Driving growth and profitability for our customers is now at the top of our agenda, equipping them with the best products and service available in the marketplace.”
www. epwin. co. uk
10 » NOV 2016 » CLEARVIEW-UK. COM