Making Hay

Summer is here, the sun is shining, the birds are singing, the days are long and business is good. Or is it? Ok, so the sun isn’t always shinning and hot summers seem a thing of the past, but the concept of how weather affects business is a hotly contested (excuse the pun) subject these days. Economists have often tried to establish a link between weather patterns and economic activity -  for many of our customers, weather can be a game changer.

Common sense suggests that in times of extreme weather similar to that experienced by the UK over the past two or three winters, there is an unavoidable effect upon the economy. Sectors such as construction for example, find it very difficult to operate given the demands placed upon the labour force in such freezing conditions. All builders will tell you a harsh winter can set them back months.

However, what about during normal weather patterns such as a two or three week high during summer or a typically wet November? Are we really going to see a marked difference from the basic fundamentals underpinning the economy? Scientists suggest higher levels of serotonin (a naturally produced chemical that promotes happiness and well being in the brain) during periods of hot weather, tempt more people onto the high street with wallet in hand. A quick search on Google reveals several retail related articles about how the high street benefits from such conditions. Clothes giant Next for example, indicated a 5.2% increase in sales for the first quarter in 2011 was due to the hot weather over Easter and the Royal Wedding. Either that or people needed clothes for the sunny weather.

For us, the answer is not always so clear cut. It is likely that different industries benefit or suffer due to changing weather conditions. A plumber or central heating engineer for example, is likely to be far busier than a builder during a freezing cold snap. Similarly, a travel agent is likely to be cursing a hot UK summer whilst the ice cream vendor runs laughing to the bank.   

If you tot up the weightings each industry has as a proportion of the total economy, you could probably start to see how differing weather conditions would affect the overall economy. Sadly we don’t have the time but it is interesting to think that a few rays of sunshine could change the course of a business or how a bucket load of snow could ruin someone’s livelihood.

Will the real apprentice please stand up?

There is a certain programme on BBC1 that is currently airing every Wednesday at 9pm. It’s the one where a well known businessman gives a bunch of twentysomethings a task to do before firing one of them. It’s become quite a hit apparently.

So much so in fact, that upwards of 8 million people regularly tune in to watch the crème de la crème of Britain’s future entrepreneurs battle it out to be Lord Sugar’s next protégé in, of course, The Apprentice. In the interests of entertainment, no one can doubt the shows’ value and despite the odd ‘character’ that most of us find hard to digest, the show does a great deal in promoting the business talent this country has to offer.

In reality of course, apprenticeships are a far cry from Lord Sugar’s boardroom shenanigans both ideologically and practically. If you asked most people in the street what your average apprentice looked like, they would normally paint you a picture of someone in their late teens who must learn the ropes from the bottom up. Contrast this to the shows contestants who spend most of their time convincing us of their super human ability to conduct business. Showing you are capable is one thing – professing you know it all already is something altogether different.

That is why apprenticeships are so important. Not only do they offer candidates their first taste of a working life, they are often accompanied by educational resources and mentoring schemes designed to raise the overall skill levels within the trade.

As the government’s Apprenticeships website says: “Apprenticeships are an excellent way of gaining qualifications and workplace experience. As an employee, you can earn as you learn and you gain practical skills from the workplace.”

To their credit, the coalition governement have pledged £1.4bn towards apprenticeship schemes over the course of 2011-2012. As well as the construction industry, there are a number of companies from other industries that have signed up to offer many thousands of apprenticeship schemes nationwide.

It’s a Numbers Game

Those of you who keep a keen eye fixed on the construction industry may have noticed the recent ‘debate’ surrounding the economic figures for the sector provided by the Office for National Statistics. The reported 4.7% fall in the industry during the first three months of this year has angered many within the trade who believe the sector has fared a lot better than that.

So much so in fact, that the Royal Institute for Chartered Surveyors (RICS), issued a public statement urging the ONS to re evaluate the methods through which it collects the data as several other market surveys produced more positive results than the government’s.

We all know how important figures are when it comes to shaping economic confidence and consumer behaviour. The construction sector is quite rightly seen as a leading indicator of how the general economy is doing and so to erroneously say the sector is floundering reflects poorly on the rest of the economy. This leads people to tighten their purse strings over the prospect of further economic difficulties and before you know it we have an almost self fulfilling blip in what could be the beginnings of the recovery.

In their defence, the ONS says that builders are using invoices dating back to the previous quarter to obtain better results; a review has been launched and we are told an accurate conclusion is expected in July. Given the fact that so many building associations and market surveyors have a different, more positive market position, it is hard to believe they are all wrong. Lets hope they aren’t. The industry has been through a difficult enough time and making sure the figures are reported accurately should be the last of our worries.

Foundations For Success

Where are you sat? Seriously. In your office? At home? Take a look around, what can you see?

I am sat in a modestly sized office that has two lights, two windows and a door. It is one of many in our building and if I peer out from one of the windows, a newly built school sits proudly in the foreground and beyond that the impressive stadium of the local football team dominates the skyline. Dotted in between are hundreds of houses, industrial units and various other buildings connected by a network of roads, pavements and railway lines.

I don’t know how your view compares but it’s fair to say most of us take our surroundings for granted – certainly from a construction perspective. When you consider the amount of hard work, planning, intelligence and resources that go into putting these structures in place (even the one you’re sat in) you begin to realise the scale of the task involved. From the smallest house to the biggest skyscraper, construction requires hard labour, planning, intelligence and a multitude of resources. Along with politics and farming, it has been around from the start of human civilisation. The tools and methods we now use have evolved over thousands of years and today’s highly specialised building industry allows companies to build higher, faster and better than ever before.

The 2007 financial crisis hit it harder than most but the air is clearing, the dust settling and the oldest profession in the world will find it’s feet once again.

Olympic Effort

Early in 2008 the construction of the Olympic Site in East London appeared unwarranted. Even silly. Deep economic turmoil, political change and the talk of horrific budget deficits made spending £9bn on a sporting venue seem ridiculous. Fast forward three years and we now have a stadium that has been built on time, under budget and with an exemplary safety record.

“To complete a complicated project such as this in less than three years is testament to the skill and professionalism of the UK construction industry.” Added John Armitt, Chairman of the Olympic Delivery Authority recently.

“I would like to thank the Team Stadium consortium and all of the workers for their hard work and commitment. It is thanks to them that we can celebrate this huge milestone for the London 2012 project and be proud of what can be achieved by UK plc.”

Understandably Armitt and his team have been highly commended for the way in which they have delivered the project. A total of 240 UK businesses have been directly involved in the construction of the stadium and 5250 people have worked on the project since May 2008. The design and construction  has been led by Sir Robert McAlpine, with Populous as the Architect and Buro Happold as the designer of the civils, structural and building services work. Hyland Edgar Driver were the Landscape Architects. The Planning Consultant was Savilles Hepher Dixon.

Here are some other interesting construction facts and figures surrounding the Olympic Venue.

• Over 240 businesses, from Devon to Scotland, have worked on the construction of the Stadium.
• More than 5,000 reinforced concrete columns were installed into the ground, up to 20m deep, to provide the foundations to support the Stadium structure.
• 112 steel rakers and 12,000 pre-cast concrete terracing units hold the spectator seating in place.
• The roof compression truss is made up of 28 steel sections, each one is 15m high by 30m long and weigh 85 tonne. A 1,350-tonne super lift crane was assembled in the field of play to lift them into place between January and July in 2009.
• The cable net roof provides the correct conditions for athletes on the field of play and covering two-thirds of spectators. The roof is covered by 112 panels of white material, totalling 25,000 m². The fabric was fitted by a team of 23 expert abseilers.
• To ensure that the sporting action is illuminated and to meet high definition TV standards, the Stadium is lit by 532 individual floodlights housed in 14 towers. The top of the towers reach 70m above the field of play.
• Each of the 14 lighting tower weighs 34 tonnes and are 28m high. They were lifted into place by a 650 tonne crane over a period of 14 days in March 2010.
• There will be around 700 rooms and spaces within the Stadium, including changing rooms and toilets. The fit-out work has required15,000sqm of plasterboard, 140,000 blocks to create walls, 11km of pipes for drainage, 338km of power cables plus 33km of other data systems cabling and 12km of ventilation ducts.
• The turf for the field of play was grown in Scunthorpe and was laid over a period of three days in March 2011.
• The track will be laid later this year to allow for LOCOG to carry out temporary overlay work which may need cranes and so could damage the track if it was laid now.
• The black and white spectator seats were designed in the UK and manufactured in a factory in Luton. They were fitted between May and December 2010.
• The toilets for spectators are spread out across 32 separate buildings on the podium level and are all now functional.

Stiched Up

We’ve built up an enviable reputation within the building products trade over the last three years and our branded range of materials continues to be in high demand. What often surprises us though, is the amount of our customers who don’t know we supply workwear. It’s not through a lack of effort on our part.

During a recent community based event in Lancashire, our MD Norman Tenray asked a group of individuals what products they associated us with. Building materials and plumbing supplies were the two most common answers with not a single soul mentioning anything about workwear. Surprising perhaps when we supply a range of work related garments to thousands of customers every year.

With fantastic relationships with some of the UK’s premier workwear suppliers, we have all the major brands at competitive prices at our disposal. Our specialist embroidery and printing service can personalise all apparel ensuring our customers present the professional image they deserve. Once you have the right number and size of clothes needed, our sales staff will take you through every stage of the design process, ensuring you are happy with the design and placement of your logo.

Along with all major workwear brands we are able to supply corporate wear, school wear, heavy duty and sports apparel – all of which can be stitched or printed to your specifications.

Building Sustainability

Every year the push towards a more ‘green’ society seems to gather pace. Electric cars, wind farms and carbon footprint reductions are just some of the eco watchwords banded about in media channels everyday.

Decades of reliance on fossil fuels coupled with the possibility of climate change means that future generations will have to take up the sustainability torch and see through the job that has already been started. This has had and continues to have, profound consequences for the construction industry.

Words such as ‘sustainability’ and ‘eco friendly’ are fast becoming part of the everyday vocabulary of today’s building professional who is gaining valuable knowledge of cheaper, greener methods of construction.

Figures provided by Google show that approximately 18,000 people in the UK search for ‘sustainable homes’ on the internet every month. If you add to that ‘green builders’ (14,800 searches) and ‘sustainable construction’ (8,100 searches) you start to understand people are paying more than just lip service to sustainable construction practice. Cost savings from renewable resources and correct design, make having a sustainable home attractive from both an environmental point of view and a financial one. This demand is fuelling a changing pattern in the construction industry with firms offering more and more in the way of sustainable provision.

The idea of being more environmentally friendly, particularly in the construction industry, is not necessarily a modern concept. The energy crisis of the 1970’s as well as a new awareness of potentially damaging climate change, led to a sustainable ‘push’ forty years ago. Perhaps little has changed with our present day overreliance on fossil fuels causing relentless price inflation over fears of scarcity and an ensuing desire to create greener, more renewable sources of energy.

Closer to home, there are lots of things we can do as individuals and businesses to help protect the environment. Most of us understand the benefits of recycling and trying to minimise our carbon footprint. From our companies’ point of view, the OBAS brand of adhesives and cleaning products are completely bio degradable and therefore eco friendly; ensuring we play our part in preserving the environment whilst maintaining all the effectiveness you would expect from an OBAS branded product. We are also able to supply an organic range of workwear that has been produced and distributed with minimal carbon footprint and a number of construction site ‘tubs’ produced from recycled plastics.

See the UK Green Building Council video below for where Green Construction may be going long term.

Diamonds – A Tradesman’s best friend

They say diamonds are a girl’s best friend but those in the trade know better.

Without boring you too much about the origins of these much sought after precious stones (formed from carbon over millions of years under huge thermodynamic pressure), the word diamond originates from the Greek word ‘adamas’ meaning unconquerable or indestructible. They are therefore, extremely useful. So useful in fact, that approximately 80% of all rough diamonds mined in any given year, are sold for industrial use.

Blades and drill bits are two of the most common industrial components that incorporate a diamond mix and our own range of diamond blades account for a large percentage of total sales. Manufactured to the highest specifications on the market, they have long been considered the jewel in the OBAS crown. So much so that we were approached by JCB in July 2010 to deliver their own branded products to market in what has proved to be a major distribution deal.

Sadly, some manufacturers mix ceramic into the product to reduce the amount of diamond content and ultimately the manufacturing price. OBAS will never reduce the quality of any of our products and you are assured that we will never compromise on the quality of our blades.

The Hire Master blade for example, has quickly established itself within the UK as the preferred blade for hire shops; it’s been designed specifically to cut a wide range of materials including stone, concrete, asphalt, bricks, glass, ceramics and most other durable surfaces. The blade was developed to achieve a quicker start when cutting harder materials and reduce white knuckle.

In monitoring issues with the blade range the records analysed have shown that less than 0.02% of annual sales results in a customer service issue. This figure includes customer miss use and physical abuse which is an incredible accolade for the blade range.

We are proud our blades have such an incredible reputation and are the preferred choice by many professionals. Quality and reliability are just two of the reasons why they remain one of our most popular products and should remain so for the foreseeable future.

Comic Enterprise

It’s not every Friday morning that you see Lady Gaga busy sorting out Mr Invincible’s sales query whilst Indiana Jones and Batwoman flitter in and out of the office. Then again, the management team at OBAS try and make everyday unique. In this instance, our staff have donned a variety of fancy dress costumes to celebrate Red Nose Day.

All good fun and a ‘win win’ situation for everyone involved. Hopefully our organisation can raise something just over three figures and some of us are starting a campaign to make everyday fancy dress day. On a serious note, Comic Relief has raised over £650 million for a huge number of charities both home and abroad since its’ inception in 1985. Every two years, the nation put their hands in their pockets and come up with a remarkable amount of money for those who need it. 2009 raised a massive £80million and despite the economic crisis of recent years, organisers hope this year will break that record.

There must be a message in there somewhere about working as a team and the value of generosity. For another time perhaps. In the meantime, Indiana is about to make a brew and I don’t want to miss out…..

True Grit

Today we  recieved a nomination for one of the regions top business awards. Following on from our success at last years BIBA’s, OBAS UK have now been selected in the North West Grit category at this years North West Business Masters event in April.

Designed to showcase those businesses that have overcome real adversity in difficult economic times, Managing Director Norman Tenray believes this award category fits perfectly with the OBAS philosophy.

“All of our staff have worked tremendously hard in these testing economic times, particularly for the construction industry, so this category is a perfect match for our ethos as a company and with the challenges we have had to face. ” He added.

“Most firms have to operate in difficult circumstances at some point, it is how you deal with them that matters. We have sought to be proactive rather than reactive and this nomination is testament to that.”

The awards ceremony, created by website TheBusinessDesk.com, is sponsored by Barclays and KPMG and will be held at Lancashire County Cricket Club on the 7th of April.