Building excellence - the BMF's mission for members
by John Newcomb, BMF CEO
12 September 2018
Our members
are at the heart of everything we do as a Federation and we are
passionate about adding value to their businesses. This is why we have
been working with the Board to evolve our vision, mission and strategic
roadmap for the next three years.
Having achieved many
milestones within our original strategic plan, and seen significant
changes in the economic and political landscape during that time, we are
now moving onto the next stage to strengthen the building materials
supply industry - Building Excellence.
As part of this
process we consulted with members to discover their
policy priorities
for the coming year. Their responses will feed into the policy and
public affairs briefings we will be giving to politicians during the
main party conference season this autumn.
Over the past 18
months we have given far greater priority to
political representation,
at Westminster, in the devolved parliaments and major city authorities,
to highlight the contribution played by our industry to the economic
growth of the country. This will continue to be an important part of our
strategy, as well as campaigning on the issues identified by members as
being of greatest importance to them.
Regional view
I spent
much of the last month visiting members in different regions, talking to
merchants and suppliers from the south of England to the lowlands of
Scotland. While there are regional variations, the overall trading
picture following four months of exceptionally dry and warm weather has
been pretty positive - a view reflected in the BMF’s
Builders MerchantBuilding Index (BMBI) data for Q2. After taking into account the extra
trading day in Q2 2018 over the same period last year, the
BMBI reports
that merchants saw average daily sales growth of 5.5% year on year.
The
BMBI, which uses point of sale tracking data collated and analysed
by the research company GfK, has become the gold standard for merchant
sales statistics nationally. As part of our drive for Building
Excellence, we aim to be the leading provider of all industry data. The
next step will be to work with GfK to drill down further to understand
differences in regional trading conditions. This valuable insight will
be shared exclusively with members at BMF’s Regional Meetings.
Developing talent
Attracting and developing talented people within the
industry will continue to be one of our main strategic goals. With the
latest group of school-leavers and university graduates entering the job
market, we are extremely encouraged that initiatives relating to
apprenticeships and higher level qualifications undertaken to date are
paying dividends.
Our
2018 Remuneration Survey found that
apprentices nationally made up 7.45% of our total merchant workforce at
30 April 2018, up from 1.12% in 2017. This is particularly interesting
as it contrasts markedly from the apprenticeship trend across all UK
industry, where the number of new starts fell dramatically following the
introduction of the new apprenticeship funding system in May 2017.
The BMF has embraced the opportunities afforded by the new system.
There are roles within BMF members for GCSE achievers, A level students
and graduates alike. Our challenge now is to build on the initial
success and recruit within the merchanting sector greater numbers than
ever, from Trade Supplier Level 2 starters to the highest achievers
seeking post graduate Level 7 opportunities.
Find out how we plan to
achieve these and other milestones at the
BMF Members’ Day Conference on 27 September, where we will be outlining further elements of our
strategic plan.
Book your place at here
This article
appeared in the September 2018 edition of Builders Merchants News (BMN)