Charlie and Sekura fly the flag for the window industry

Charlie Hill managing director of Sekura Group has proved a little good news can go a very long way.

The commercial fabrication and installation specialist is the leading supplier of windows and doors to the housing associations and local authorities in the North East.

Charlie stepped into the media limelight at the beginning of last month [Jan] following Nissan’s decision to axe more than 1,200 jobs at its Sunderland plant.

As the local and national media proclaimed the end of manufacturing in the North East, Charlie stepped up with Sekura’s story, announcing a new £1.5 million contract win and the creation of 35 new jobs.

Picked up by the local press and catapulted into the national media, including appearances on BBC One’s Breakfast programme and BBC Two’s, the Politics show, Charlie has flown the flag for the window industry and manufacturing in the North East.

Charlie said: “It all started with a call to the local press. It was all doom and gloom following job cuts at Nissan. Clearly that’s bad for a lot of people but I explained that there were still good news stories, not least us.

“We’re still growing and we’re still creating jobs. We’ve brought on 35 people from Nissan and two new salesmen because we believe that there are still opportunities out there.

“The national media picked up on what we were saying and it snowballed from there. It’s simply that we still feel that there is business out there and we’re going after it.”

Representing a multi-million pound investment, Sekura today operates from a state-of-the-art 34,000 sq ft factory, employing 160 staff, 35 fitting teams and 70 sub-contractors. Switching systems supplier to Profile 22 in 2004, the fabricator now manufactures 1,200 frames and 400 composite doors per week.

Charlie said that the continuing investment in its production facility had been critical to Sekura’s success. He said: “Efficiency is absolutely critical. The commercial sector does represent opportunity but in common with other sectors, it is increasingly feeling the pinch on price so your manufacturing operation has to be efficient if you’re going to make any money.

“You also have to be able to tick the boxes and meet the right regulations just to get your foot in the door. If you do get your product offer right and get that professionalism in your business, you can make money – we have grown by 30 per cent in the last year.”

Profile 22 has launched a new Commercial Fabricator Scheme to support Profile 22’s existing commercial fabricators to generate new leads and to support others in moving into the commercial sector.

This gives existing qualifying commercial fabricators access to a dedicated lead generation service plus commercial training, marketing, design and specification support. Customers of those qualifying fabricators can also draw on the experience of Profile 22’s own in-house specification team who offer a dedicated support service to the specifier.

Andrew Reid, sales development director, Profile 22 said: “There are 890,000 homes still below Decent Homes Standard accordingly to latest figures of which 66 per cent are local authority, the remainder with RSLs. Continued investment to bring 500,000 more homes up to standard is planned up to 2011, with the remainder likely to extend the programme up to 2013.

“This represents a wealth of opportunity for those fabricators who are not only equipped but properly supported to go after it.”

For more information on Sekura Group visit www.sekuragroup.co.uk or call 0191 4195600.

For more information on Profile 22 or the system’s company’s commercial fabricator scheme visit www.profile22.co.uk or call 01952 290910.