When I first started in the business all our competitors were local people and so you were on a level playing field, and provided you were reasonably efficient you could make a living. Today, it’s an entirely different world. Our customers are sourcing globally and so we are competing at the quality level with Japan, Germany, France, and a lower quality level, with China.
The vast majority of the, the competition and things all comes down to price, on an awful lot of things. Everything coming from the Far East is, you know, is, is done to a price these days. It, there still is a demand for a quality product and that can still be produced in the UK but with labour costs and things it’s obviously far cheaper to, for volume products to produce them out in the Far East and to ship them in these days.
It’s one of the jobs we’ve got to do, over the next few months and years, is to change people’s perception of us as a company. Now, that is obviously both the general public who are our customers, or potential customers, our retail customers who, perhaps, currently perceive us as being traditional, made in Sheffield, good quality, a little dull maybe, to being somebody that produces really exciting products. And, indeed, we have to also change the perceptions of our employees, particularly our sales force and make sure that they’re really in tune with what’s happening in the company.