17
PRO INSTALLER SEPTEMBER 2014
PRO NEWS
@proinstaller1
KJM Group Report up to 30% Increase in Sales
– Contributed by Triple-Glazed Products
Hampshire installer and home
improvement specialist KJM Group
reports that triple-glazing now accounts for 20 per cent of its standard PVC-U product sales.
The G11 and G13 Awards ‘Installer of the
Year Finalist’, said it has seen continuing
growth in triple-glazed sales this year, with
an expectation that they would exceed
those of double-glazed products within the
next five-years.
Owner and Managing Director, Mark
Pearce, said that KJM was seeing sustained
and ‘growing interest’ in triple-glazed products from ‘well-informed consumers’, calling
for a cut in VAT on triple-glazed ranges.
He said: “People are doing their research.
Customers buying triple-glazing will have
generally reviewed products online, they’ll
have an understanding of u-values and
a wider interest in energy efficiency and
sustainable home improvements. “At the
present it’s the ‘early-adopters’ who are buy-
ing triple-glazed products but the demand is
there and it’s growing.
“What would really accelerate this growth
would be if the government reduced VAT
on this high thermal specification window
to 5%, that way they would cost little more
than our standard “A” rated double glazed
units.”
KJM currently supplies two triple-glazed
systems, one – a 44mm system with u-values as low as 0.66W/m².K - from Veka, the
other a 36 mm system from Profile 22.
The installer has developed a carefully
crafted proposition, developed to highlight the advantages of triple-glazing to the
consumer. Triple-glazing offers 40 per cent
better insulation over our ‘A’ rated double-glazed products.
“If you emphasis the add-on benefits,
for example; the acoustic advantages of
laminated glass, the argument in favor of triple-glazed products becomes very strong.”
KJM Group also supplies a variety of
other branded PVC-U systems, wooden windows and doors; including vertical sliding
and flush casement windows and aluminum
products.
Their triple-glazed ranges sit within a
broader sales strategy, which saw KJM
Group’s turnover top £3.2million last year
– almost 30 per cent increase on 2012. This
has increased focus on niche and higher-end products alongside the supply of
standard products.
“There are so many positive messages
around triple-glazing”, continued Pearce,
“The association with Passivhaus, innovation and particularly, its use in Scandinavia – consumers understand that this is a
cutting edge technology. We’re confident
that it’s going to drive sales in the coming
year but also into the future.”
For more information visit www.
kjmgroup.co.uk email sales@kjmgroup.
co.uk or call 01264 359355.
New consultancy
aims to simplify H&S
employment law for
small businesses
Up to 80% of Britain’s small businesses don’t currently comply with current health and safety
employment law because they’re either confused or feel priced out by expensive consultants.
That’s the view of a new
UK-based health and
safety and employment
law consultancy that’s
going to bring simplicity
to the minefield of British business law.
Launching Protecting.
co.uk, Mark Hall and Jonny
Ratcliffe say that they’ll offer
free advice and jargon-free
services to the thousands of
businesses that are currently
“winging it” with their health
and safety obligations.
“We’re bringing a
much-overdue no-nonsense
approach to the industry,”
says Mark Hall, “Too many
businesses are put off by
confusing pricing structures
and advice they simply don’t
understand. It’s time somebody cut through all the
noise and put the customer
back in control.”
‘cut through
the noise’
Protecting.co.uk say that
their preliminary market research found a huge majority
of small businesses unaware
of the fact that they didn’t
comply with health and
safety codes, and that there
was a demand for simple,
low-cost legal advice to help
companies get up to speed.
Companies across the UK are
put off by what Protecting.
co.uk calls “a mad array of
costs and strange pricing
options” in the compliance
industry. According to the
company, employers are too
often confused by legislation,
and find traditional health
and safety consultants to be
too expensive for their operating budgets.
“Everybody knows they
should be on top of health
and safety, but too much jar-
gon and not enough free advice is leaving people either
doing the wrong thing, or
with no cover at all,” Ratcliffe
says. Protecting.co.uk is to
launch with six NEBOSH-accredited staff with over 35
years of experience between
them to address this demand
for cheaper and clearer
advice. Says Hall, “And we’re
looking to double our head
count within the first half a
year.”
Hall and Ratcliffe have
already brought their
no-nonsense approach to the
world of car leasing. Their
transparent pricing ethos on
their Flexed.co.uk business
has put the customer back in
charge of what has traditionally been a complex industry,
and they’re now shifting 100
cars every month to satisfied
drivers.
“We offered a service that
had no hidden costs and
straight, honest advice,” said
Hall, “And we found that’s
exactly what people want. It’s
hardly rocket science.”
Neither is Hall a stranger
to the health and safety
employment law sector. His
father, Anthony Hall was
the founder of LPMS (Legal
Personalised Management
Services), and was the largest
health and safety law consultancy in the UK with 125 staff
when the business was sold
to Croner Consulting some
10 years ago. With his brother also in the trade, Mark is
certainly following the family
tradition for sound legal and
business advice.
“We’re going to prove that
health and safety law is neither difficult nor expensive,”
says Hall. “Protecting.co.uk is
going to be the company that
gives this industry the good
shaking up it deserves.”
www.protecting.co.uk