company profile

impressive impact

services, INSTALLATION, february 2007, COMMENTS

It’s not every day that someone opens a new trade wholesale business, offering a broad range of well-respected pro-audio and lighting brands, so it is perhaps surprising that when Impact Products announced their arrival by exhibiting at the recent PLASA show in London, more ears did not prick up, more eyes did not sharpen and, to the casual observer at least, the herd just carried on quietly grazing. Perhaps that was because it wasn’t then real, actual, in-the-face happening, or perhaps it wasn’t widely appreciated that the people behind the initiative were not arrivistes or chancers, but serious businessmen with heavy-duty credentials, a successful track record in a similar line of merchandise, superb resources and well researched ambitions. Well, the trumpet sounded and, as of now, the campaign has begun. Impact have already signed up an impressive portfolio of manufacturers and brands, set up their depot and delivery network, and provisioned their warehousing space. The brands offered so far include Allen & Heath, Litestructures, Martin Audio, the other Martin (Professional), Formula Sound, Shure, Audio Technica, Denon, Electro-Voice, Tascam, Le Maitre, and more besides with more to follow. Before too many of you go all moist at the thought of easy access to cheap gear, let me point out that these products and services are available, to quote both the Impact brochure and the website, strictly to trade only. So, who exactly are these people, and why have they done this? The first part of the question is easy to answer. Impact Products is a part of Solutionsgroup.plc, the UK’s leading supplier of everything to do with broadcast media delivery. If you have a conventional TV aerial at home, the chances are that, whoever fitted it and wherever you live, they supplied it. Ditto satellite systems and all the cables connectors gizmos and bits required to deliver the end product. Given that there are more than 40 million TV receivers in this country, plus a similar and growing number of dedicated screens, it will be immediately apparent that this is not a small business. A look at the new central warehouse on the Brackmills Industrial estate in Northampton would quickly convince you that it is a very big one. To answer the second part of the question (why) and a third part (how), I went to Northampton to meet the Solutions and Impact MD Grant Lester, who talked me through the whole thing. What I am writing here is not a page out of the How To Set-up a Trade Wholesale Business manual, so I will concentrate instead on the difference features, the things which suggest that, pretty damn quickly, the Impact numbers and addresses will be added to the supplier list by contractors, installers, service providers and other industry professionals across the country. The first thing that strikes one about this operation is its clever use of IT. The systems are sophisticated, efficient and, doubtless foolproof. It clearly helps in setting up such an operation if you have an established, successful, model to follow. Thanks to the Solutionsgroup experience, Impact have been able to hit the ground running.

There are other interesting wrinkles too. At Impact HQ there is a dedicated team who have nothing directly to do with sales, not even with service. It is their task to ensure that their customers, all of them, are happy and satisfied, all of the time. That’s a lot better than music-on-hold and an 0870 number. As if to further emphasise that Impact is no mere box merchant, the company also maintains its own in-house service department and operates a technical support function, including complimentary CAD services. Every depot and workstation is networked via Northampton, and every vehicle is satellite tracked, which is all aimed at ensuring that the right box gets to the right place at the right time. Grant Lester sees other opportunities for his chosen role as primary pro-product wholesale supplier, namely spare and replacement parts, from stock. This brings the twin benefits, first in that it helps paper over any cracks in the manufacturer’s own supply and service pipeline, and second, it promises the customer less downtime and general hassle arising out of that. As anyone who has waited weeks (sometimes even months) for a replacement loudspeaker drive unit or plug-in electronics card to find its way halfway around the world will tell you, that is one major plus. If all this works out as planned Impact’s impressive ambitions will bring a measure of added stability to the marketplace, and will result in an improved level of service to end users. If there’s good profit to be made by doing that, who, I wonder, is going to grumble?

Words: Walter Mirauer

From: February 2007 Issue

Subscribe to NIGHT magazine

comments

	No comments yet

Add Comment