How do you go from a zero base to selling millions of £ of product to the public sector in just 18 months? Read on for the extraordinary story of one the UK’s leading non-food distributors, Alliance National –which has done just that…
When CEO, David Elder, set out on the journey of creating a national organisation that would rapidly grow to become one of the UK’s leading non-food distributors in the private sector, he knew that the public sector was also an important future market for the business.
What he didn’t know was just how hard it would be.
Having completed dozens of tenders, the company failed to make in-roads with its first attempts, and he now admits that he used to regularly ask: “Is the Public Sector a closed shop?” and, “just how hard can it be?”
Today is a very different story and sees Alliance selling and delivering millions of pounds worth of catering products into education, healthcare and social environments.
David is happy to share his experience and success and believes that by creating awareness and transparency in some of the lessons learned, which may prove valuable to operators in helping greater understanding of the processes.
“The public sector tender process is well defined and it does offer opportunity and fairness for all” he says. “In theory, it’s simple; get on the tender list and notify intent – complete the tender accurately – make a great offer and naturally, sit back and wait to win the business”….
Clearly, things didn’t always go to plan…
He continues: “We quickly learned that a great deal of work went into each tender and after a succession of early failures, we recognised that a highly bespoke and focused approach was needed with an expert involved who understood the process. So Phase II of our attack was implemented:
“That meant employing an expert, so Andrew Reddy was recruited, who now spearheads the public sector business for Alliance. Then it was about reviewing the tender preparation in detail – resourcing additional specialist products and embracing environmental and sustainability issues. At that stage, we thought we’d cracked it and sat back and waited to win the business!”
Not so… “Certainly this approach initiated more conversations and resulted in more final interviews but it still didn’t result in any significant business gains. It seemed as if poor management information was stifling competition and making it hard for the client to recognise a good offer when they saw one”
Not to be deterred – Alliance decided it was time to really get close to the ground for Phase III.
“Phase III was high impact and intensive. It involved more strings to the bow and consisted of premeetings and liaising with the individual customers on the ground to understand their unique requirements prior to tender. It also meant researching and
understanding local business drivers such as safety initiatives, cost cutting targets and people development”.
He reinforces that Alliance started small and looked to build a service reputation through high performance and detailed reporting. It also looked to work closely with known and trusted manufacturer partners such as Johnson Diversey and Georgia Pacific.
“It became evident that we also needed additional documentation and evidence to support the service offer and reputation. This included ethical trading policies which are based on current activity as well as any future aspirations, systematic reviews of quality procedures and additional performance measures. What we found crucial, was the ability to deliver a clear local offering on a site by site basis”.
From this point onwards the story changes. Now a strong partner to the public sector, Alliance is looking to further capitalise on its foothold in the further education, healthcare and local government sectors.
As Elder concludes: “It’s certainly proved to be a longer and far more detailed path than we ever thought. But having understood what the cost sector needs and realigned our offer, it’s now a relatively straight forward process and in fact, it’s a process that has merit across any supply chain whether public or private.
My advice to fellow businesses in foodservice which may be looking to break into the public sector: Get close and get your hands dirty and look to truly understand the needs of the contract on a site by site basis”.
SERVICE, QUALITY, AND VALUE
You hear these words a lot at Alliance, and with good reason. The company believes its absolute commitment to these values is what differentiates it from other non-food distributors.
“We are strongly motivated to deploy behind our customers’ objectives,’ says David Elder, the Alliance CEO. ‘That means we listen very carefully to what they need. Our national and regional group customers often focus on control and compliance, while our independent accounts really look for choice and value, whilst our Alliance Online customers want convenience and famous brands.
The common factor across all of our customers is of course, service. Fortunately, that is what we do best! “Other factors are also important – we are a very people oriented culture and want everybody – customers, staff, and our supplier partners, to enjoy the day to day business experience.” The customers certainly seem to agree, given Alliance’s success in both the national and independent market.
The company’s 12,000 national customers include household names like Thistle and Ramada Jarvis hotels, Loch Fyne and Petit Blanc restaurants, Tiger Tiger bars, Virgin Active leisure clubs, and Priory care homes, as well as a number of significant public sector organisations.
They also regularly supply catering equipment to over 20,000 independent businesses ranging from 5 star country house hotels to the corner café on the high street or the local village school.
The above article appeared in the May issue of Eat Out magazine.
