Group Newsletter ISSUE 5 | FEBRUARY 2019 • SPOTLIGHT ON: ITALY • MY BRANCH: TANYA BELL • FOCUS ON: CATEGORY SPECIALISM AND SERVICES DIFFERENTIATION Contents CEO’S 1 FOREWORD “To make the most of our potential, we need to lift best practice from one area of the business, and shift it to others.” 2 3 FOCUS ON: CATEGORY OWN BRANDS: wins being converted into of us, success is about finding change). When you look closer, SPECIALISM AND SERVICES WHY THEY MATTER AND increased sales that benefit our the highest standards of sales you see that this was driven by DIFFERENTIATION WHAT WE’RE DOING TO CEO’s financial performance. He has effectiveness anywhere in Rubix, improvements in our margin – MAKE THEM COUNT already identified over €3.5m and then applying that right thanks to our greater buying power of additional sales for this year. across the Group. as a larger business – reductions in Foreword Read more in the last edition of our overheads and the performance this newsletter. Our first Group-wide of newly acquired companies. 4 5 customer survey Lift and shift In the UK we are producing Although sales overall increased SPOTLIGHT ON: NEWS dedicated catalogues for each of our by 4%, this was from acquisitions Of course, any effort to increase ITALY own brands. Starting with Cutline, and not from a strong sales sales is most effective when you To make the most of our potential, we sent 150 copies to every branch, performance. This is to be expected really understand your customer. we need to lift best practice from enabling the teams to introduce the in a year where we focussed on With that in mind, we are one area of the business and shift offer to customers, raise awareness integrating the companies. conducting our first Group-wide it to others. This goes for almost that we are a serious player in the customer survey. 6 7 any aspect of our business, but I category and generate enquiries. However, with a lot of the want to focus on driving sales. integration work either behind us or MY BRANCH: We have invited 164,000 customers LIVING THE VALUES: We also send a catalogue focussed well underway, we must now focus TANYA BELL to participate. The results will tell PIERRE VASSORT We are already approaching the on TGM to c.40,000 customers on improving our sales. us who our customers are and end of the first quarter and I can’t and potential customers every two what they need, our performance believe the first two months have months. It features sharply-priced We expect to see a significant against those needs and how gone by so quickly. When time is offers and special deals that are improvement in our organic sales we are doing compared to the moving so fast, we don’t have the replicated on the webshop to drive performance in 2019. In particular, competition. I look forward to 8 9 luxury of dreaming up new ways online sales. we want EBITDA as a percentage sharing the results with you in April. to grow sales. Luckily, that is not of sales to improve from c.7% in GET TO KNOW: KEY ACCOUNT necessary; we can just look around In the Netherlands, our MCA Linear 2018 towards our target of 10%. NEW CEO OF GERMANY, UPDATE Performance in 2018 our business for inspiration. Motion Robotics business has been AUSTRIA & SWITZERLAND delivering operational improvement Thank you The full-year accounts haven’t (DACH), REINHARD BANASCH In France, we have been running projects for customers including been audited and finalised just yet very successful sales campaigns Heineken, where we changed the Thank you for everything you did but I can tell you that we delivered On the cover: on GISS – one of our own brands structure of their production lines to in 2018. We are in a great position a strong performance in 2018. Mark Harvey, generated €8m of high-margin improve efficiency. MCA is making at the start of the year and I’m Workshop Supervisor, sales in just four days. You can learn a big difference to our business in looking forward to working with all We have invested a lot of money Wolverhampton more about why own brands are that market because we are able of you throughout 2019. and internal resources on Specialist Engineering so important in our interview with to introduce those services through integrating our businesses, acquiring Services Centre. Philippe Coution later in this edition. existing MRO relationships. You new businesses and positioning the can read more about what MCA Martin Thomsen company to make the most of our Spain is doing a great job of has been doing in our feature on European market leading position. CEO Have you got a story you mobilising Key Accounts. This category specialism. is about making sure that would like featured in the next This hard work resulted in a 27% we see more of the potential These are just a few examples, issue? Send it through to: improvement in our profit (excluding revenue from new contract there are many others. For all [email protected] the one off costs of delivering the Case study: MCA Linear Motion, Netherlands Focus on: In the Netherlands we acquired two It is also helping us to grow market businesses with complementary share in key industry sectors expertise in linear, mechatronics and such as Food, Packaging and Category Specialism and robotics in 2015. Pharmaceuticals. Under the name “MCA Linear Recently, a customer contacted us Services Differentiation Motion Robotics, Powered by about a complete pick and place Rubix”, the business has allowed solution for one of their production Rubix Netherlands to be involved in lines. They wanted installation, reviewing customer processes and software and programming helping them to make the most of up- alongside the motion system itself. to-date automation technologies. The team engineered a solution with Yaskawa that they could install Working closely with suppliers like and use immediately, delivering 37 Yaskawa or Siemens ensures we picks per minute! The project was are seen as adding value in project so successful that the customer planning, mechanical and electrical immediately ordered a second ‘Category specialism’ and the processes and production “We have good examples of both engineering, systems design and complete solution. ‘services differentiation’ are organisations of our customers. technical and advanced services building, and even off-the-shelf in certain markets across the robotics solutions. two of the six pillars that form “The first level is about Group. We want to take the best the Group strategy. integrating our logistics within of the services we offer in some of the customer’s supply chain, our markets, and then make those Antoine Audureau, Group and we do this through vending services available to customers right Case study: DTM, Spain VP Category Management, (Invend™) or Insite™ services. This across the Group. contributes to building loyalty with explains what this means and our business. “Where we combine category This is a great example of how ‘sticky’ because customers return to why it’s important for Rubix. leadership, technical and we can bring additional value the organisation that provided the “An additional second level is advanced services, we add value to customers even in product customised product in the first place where we expand our for our clients over and above the groups that are usually seen as when they have a maintenance need. commoditised, such as chains. “Our ambition is to establish Rubix technical services. This is fact that we are simply the largest industrial distributor. This level of customisation is in as a multi-specialist distributor with about the product related Thanks to DTM’s deep knowledge demand all over Europe, giving our recognised expertise in key product maintenance and support we provide in mechanical power transmission network a great opportunity to categories. Across the Group, we to our customers. Here, we are “Most importantly, this helps us to and specialist insight, they customise duplicate this experience. want to be seen as the leader in providing repair services, training or stand out from the competition. products for their customers. Power Transmission (including product modifications to clients in This is important because we want DTM covers the full Spanish national Bearings) and Pneumatics, but also our own workshops and facilities to take market share from our Working with Tsubaki and Renold, territory and we are now working as a credible player in Tools and based on their individual needs. competitors, and grow faster than they recently helped a customer with Renold to design and implement Personal Protective Equipment. As the market. make cost savings by replacing a technical center for chains in our you would expect, we will also pursue “The most advanced and third a customised chain. Services like Madrid facility, which will be finished leadership in other categories within level is then where we offer “There are great services on offer this make the relationship very around April this year. our markets where there is significant operational improvement within our chosen categories in commercial opportunity. services, such as monitoring the some of our markets right now. So a condition of equipment, detecting big part of this is about making the “In order to support and make the leakage, and moving into preventive most of what we already have. We’ll Case study: Sogema, France most of this specialist position in our and predictive maintenance. The also grow our market share through chosen categories, we will offer both level of engagement for these acquisitions and there will be a technical and advanced services that advanced services requires the sharp focus on buying businesses We acquired Sogema two years customers is increased efficiency add value for our customers.