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Andy Ball, managing director at Balls2 Marketing, explores the (not-so-) hidden benefits of creating an aspirational brand. After a very long wait, No Time To Die finally hit the cinemas, taking more than £25 million at the UK and Ireland box office in just three days, and breaking the domestic record for the highest opening weekend of any Bond movie....
By Adrian Toon, director of a2n. Pictures taken at dusk can provide a ‘lifestyle’ image, which can show a warmth provided by a new window or door installation. At dusk we get a lot of blue light, and when coupled with the room’s ‘warm’ (2,700K) LED lights, similar colour to the old tungsten bulbs, the room offers a cosy feel....
Dave Broxton, managing director of Bohle, explains how strategic investment can help glass processors increase capacity and meet demand, while saving tax and delivering long-term efficiency gains It’s been no walk in the park, but Covid has been good for the home improvement sector. Record levels of activity in the housing market, fiscal stimulus, retention of jobs and, with limited...
Kevin Cox, director of Ramsgate Glass, explains how the company took advantage of increasing demand for high-end home improvements through its investment in glass processing and a 35-year working relationship with Bohle. We’ve noticed a big uplift in demand over the last 18 months, which is a direct result of Covid and lockdown. People who would have normally enjoyed a...
Nominated as a finalist in two categories at the forthcoming G21 Awards, Lincoln-based fabricator Sternfenster is set to launch its lead-to-delivery quotation system, Proposal Builder. Mike Parczuk, managing director of Sternfenster, explains its evolution. We’ve been in business for 46 years, and we’ve seen plenty of highs and lows in that time, but the last 18 months have been the...
With supply issues, skills shortages and high demand continuing to put pressure on the sector, Quickslide’s managing director Ben Weber reveals how digital improvements are reinforcing its lean manufacturing principles. Lean manufacturing is ultimately the pursuit of perfection, maximising both production efficiency and product quality. For Quickslide, the recent implementation of a bespoke, digital operating system continues to be instrumental...
Select Windows’ managing director Louise Day discusses how partnering with HWL Trade Frames has allowed the company to take full advantage of demand for heritage and flush products. The market for heritage and flush windows has increased significantly, especially so in the last 12-18 months. We’ve seen a big upturn, one that’s coincided with lockdown and the boom in demand...
Glazerite UK Group’s northwest division MD Darren Rhodes discusses how measures being put in place at the Bolton site will improve productivity and customer service. Glazerite’s Bolton site has been the subject of a series of major investments to better support our customers over recent years. In addition to new equipment to improve our capabilities, we’ve doubled the size of...
Is Covid’s legacy a permanent shift in the dynamic between fabricator and installer? Jody Vincent, sales director at Emplas, discusses. There has been a massive shift in how we and our customers do business, and at times it hasn’t always felt like those changes are for the better. That’s because there’s going to be a legacy from Covid. Some of...
Glass Times editor Nathan Bushell talks to Deceuninck’s MD Rob McGlennon about the current stresses on the window industry, and how the systems company is positioning itself to meet its customer’s demands. While a series of lockdowns in 2020/early 2021 drove a significant boom in home improvement – which was still being experienced well into Q4 2021 – the subsequent...
By Russell Yates, managing director of AluFold Direct. What installers want most is certainty. After so much disruption in the supply chain, they’re looking for fabricators who won’t let them down. There can’t be a single fabricator in the UK that hasn’t had to apologise to customers at some point over the past year because of extended lead times or...
Simon Monks, MD of VBH, gives an example of how customers benefit when hardware and profile suppliers work in partnership. As one of the largest and longest serving hardware specialists in the business, we are often asked to work alongside companies from other aspects of the window and door industry to develop hardware products. Having our own greenteQ hardware brand,...
By Ben Brocklesby, director at Origin. Innovation is at the core of everything we do here at Origin. This is highlighted by the fact that we have a dedicated R&D team that work to not only create new market leading products, but to improve our current range. This ensures that our partners can continually provide their customers with the very...
By Neil Cooper-Smith, senior analyst at Business Pilot. The provisional seasonally adjusted estimate of UK residential transactions in September 2021 was 160,950, which was 68.4% higher than September 2020, and 67.5% higher than August 2021, according to the latest government statistics. We can attribute this to the rush to take advantage of the Stamp Duty holiday, which closed on September 30, and...
By Jane Dalton, co-founder of Global Parlez, a market research agency focused on environmental and economic sustainability. No-one had heard of Zoom before Covid, and hardly anyone was buying hand gel. Now, digital strategy and disinfection have become big business almost overnight. But those are not the only areas of life where change has happened. Lockdown gave people time to stop and...
By John Crittenden, managing director of Carl F Groupco. I’d like to congratulate the 19 fenestration companies with their ‘united front’ open letter, and their approach to the current unprecedented and unrelenting challenges that we as an industry have faced since March 2020. As an independent hardware distributor of leading manufacturer brands, Carl F Groupco has always been at the...
By OnLevel’s Gary Dean. In June 2019 the UK government announced a legally binding target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050. Net zero carbon is reached when the amount of greenhouse gas produced balances with the amount removed from the atmosphere. The pursuit of a net zero carbon economy has imposed widespread implications on the built environment. As a...
By John Crittenden, managing director of Carl F Groupco. I’d like to congratulate the 19 fenestration companies with their ‘united front’ open letter, and their approach to the current unprecedented and unrelenting challenges that we as an industry have faced since March 2020. As an independent hardware distributor of leading manufacturer brands, Carl F Groupco has always been at the...
By Chris Pepper, Time54. Construction, or building specification, marketing is about creating awareness and demand so that your product has a fighting chance of being specified early in the building process and remains specified as alternative products are touted by competitors. The primary focus is those specifiers involved in the initial stage of a project, for example: architects, designers and...
James Trotter, managing director of Select Window Systems, explains how the support he has received from Sternfenster has helped the company navigate a period of unprecedented demand. When the first lockdown ended, nobody really knew what was going to happen, and there was no way we could have predicted the surge in demand that followed. The general consensus was that...
