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| Richard Moore answers questions as to how Essentra Security intends to maintain its market leading position |
In his first interview since taking up this important role for the UK’s leading distributor of ID systems, printers and accessories Richard answers some searching questions as to how Essentra Security intends to maintain its market leading position.
Q: Richard, what makes Essentra Security different from all the other distributors that stock ID solutions?
A: The answer is succinctly encapsulated in the new strapline that we are using across all our marketing material, adverts and activities. ‘For Everything ID’ very neatly describes what we are about. Unlike other distributors, we are entirely focussed on ID solutions and have strong direct partnerships with leading manufacturers including, Ultra ID, Evolis, HID Fargo & Datacard. This places us in a unique position to share with customers an unparalleled level of product and market knowledge that we have acquired over the last 30 years. This enables us to deliver to our customers the latest ID technologies and products to maximum benefit.
Q: Why does the very successful brand name Securit World seem to have disappeared?
A: It is in fact still used as part of our product brand identity to trade customers, but in 2013 our parent group, Filtrona plc was re-branded as Essentra plc and following this move, all Essentra plc companies were also re-branded including Securit World, which became Essentra Security.
For most customers, Securit World as a name may have disappeared, but what has not changed is the enthusiasm of every member of our team to meet our customers’ expectations. It was this passion for providing the highest levels of pre and post sales support that played a major part in Securit World being a company that people liked dealing with, and although the company has now been integrated into a much larger organisation, we are determined to maintain and improve on, the level of service that customers have come to expect.
Q: Why Essentra?
A: Essentra is an abstract name which was chosen because each of the group’s businesses manufacture and distribute millions of essential products and components which often play a critical enabling role in the businesses of our customers.
Q: Two years on from the acquisition of Securit World how do you think Essentra Security is perceived as a company that people like dealing with?
A: From the many conversations I have had with dealers and system integrators since taking up my role as UK Director of Sales; I believe that we are achieving a high level of customer satisfaction on a day to day basis. We have to acknowledge that there was a brief period when we experienced some growing pains and became a victim of our own success, but we dealt with any problems head on and we hope with little inconvenience to the vast majority of our customers.
We constantly measure ourselves against a number of KPIs and as you would expect, one of these includes order fulfilment. We are currently achieving 99% of our orders delivered next day in full based on our knowledge of the market and customer demand. There are inevitably factors that are beyond our control and we have plans in place to mitigate these and improve our operational efficiency even further.
Q: What are these plans?
A: Well, we are certainly looking to achieve maximum advantage from the major investment we made in our new distribution centre in Banbury which opened for business last year. This has given us an increase in storage capacity and we can now boast the biggest stock holding of ID products in the UK allowing us to meet customers delivery expectations. However, the Essentra Security’s commercial team is currently overseeing the introduction of an even
"Essentra Security’s commercial team is currently overseeing the introduction of an even broader product range with a wider choice of ID accessories and options" |
broader product range with a wider choice of ID accessories and options, plus new software for card design, data management and production.
Q: What are the key factors which will ensure Essentra Security’s on-going success?
A: We need to continue recommending the best ID solutions to make the purchasing process virtually effortless. We understand that our customers are specifying a solution that encompasses a number of elements therefore the timely availability and delivery of our systems can make a big difference to customers who are themselves looking to meet their customers’ expectations.
Product availability and performance along with other KPI measures are obviously very important, but so is the ability of the Essentra Security team to build lasting business relationships with our customers. In this respect I have been fortunate to take over the leadership of a talented sales team who share my passion for looking at ways to constantly improve how we serve our customers. Over the coming months, I will be focusing the activities of the team to ensure we become even more customer facing going into the future.
Q: Are you confident that a distributor which only supplies ID solutions can continue to prosper in tough economic conditions.
A: Absolutely. There are many opportunities for us to grow our business through extending our product range and adding value to the supply chain of our customers. The sales of all the printers that we distribute are increasing on a month by month basis which is a reflection of the uplift in demand for access control systems. We are also seeing substantial demand for cost-effective ID printing solutions from businesses and organisations who wish to have the flexibility of onsite issuance of security cards. Our knowledge and experience in the ID Card Printing market means we are ideally positioned to develop this business further.
