Kitchen furniture manufacturer Getley has reported sales growth of 21% over the past two years, despite Covid, and is confidently predicting a further 35% increase in turnover for 2021 to £7 million.
Marketing director Dan Hughes told kbbreview: “To meet this demand we have taken on 10 additional staff and have invested over £1m in new machines and new premises that will soon be coming online.”
Covid forced the factory to shut down for four weeks in March last year, but all staff were back at work by August 1. Hughes explained: “We did see an inevitable drop in turnover in 2020 as we were forced to close during the first lockdown. We returned in May 2020 after lockdown and to begin with it was a slow start, but since July 2020 we have been running record numbers month after month with no sign of this slowing down.”
The manufacturer also pre-empted any supply chain issues due to Brexit or Covid by increasing its stockholding levels by 60%.
While Getley is continuing with its established cabinet-making offering, producing the cabinets and buying in whichever doors and wirework its retailer customers have specified, the launch of its new Alku range has expanded its business model with a range of complete kitchens, delivered direct to site.
Hughes explained: “Alku takes the company in a completely new direction. The biggest problem was that component ordering was out of our control. Because of this, we began offering a complete service where we order the doors, supply the wirework and accessories, giving us much greater control over the supply process, the customer also benefits from a single point of contact and a single invoice per kitchen. We now have a full range of doors with all the accessories needed.”
Getley has also invested in new machinery to produce its new doors.
Hughes said: “We invested in a new edge bander and a new wrapping machine to give us better protection during transport and speed up the dispatch times. Four extra vans have also been purchased. We also invested in a new factory with a full CNC production line dedicated to the manufacture of Alku with a machine shop to produce special-size components, special-size and custom doors, and in-house facility to spray them, all this will work to bring down the lead times of custom items. Lastly, we have made a substantial investment in to the two leading kitchen CAD design software packages, Compusoft and Articad, making it easy to design with Alku along with new internal software that allows our CAD department to produce detailed cabinet drawings that can be sent out to customers with the order confirmation.”
Getley is also planning to expand its bedrooms offering with new door designs, colours and internal storage solutions.
Hughes outlined Getley’s next step for Alku. Predicting “a very busy 12 months” ahead, he told kbbreview: “We have plans to further expand our Alku range with bathrooms, home offices, studies and a range of living furniture that can be adapted to include home working. We will also be bringing in new staff, training them to Getley’s high standards, to bolster the team to in excess of 75.”