Consolidating its market, delivering new and more profitable products, rationalising stock levels and growing its customer base within its South and South West England geographical footprint, were all factors in prompting Sarum Wholesale to look for a new business structure to provide the credibility it required for sustainable growth – and it was the Salisbury office of chartered accountants Francis Clark that the business turned to for advice.
 
The independent family owned business sells over 15,000 different hardware, gardening and DIY products to the retail trade including garden centres, builders merchants, cook shops and farm shops within a 90 mile radius of the business’ Salisbury base.
 
Sarum Wholesale grew from the hardware store in Wilton the Mouland family founded over 50 years ago, the partnership being established in 1983 trading on the back of a deep knowledge of the hardware and DIY sector while maintaining the same personal and efficient service to customers developed as store owners.
 
Today the business employs some 42 people – 18 at its 30,000 sq ft warehouse base on Downton Business Park, 19 in its own four shops across the region and five representatives on the road talking to upwards of 550 accounts.
 
Growth has been contemporaneous with the boom in garden centres and then with the diversification of products and services garden centres now offer. The popularity of do-it-yourself has been followed by grow-it-your-self and cook-it-yourself with Sarum Wholesale well placed to service the growing demand for the vast range of products that go along with them. 
 
Managing director, Jon Mouland said: “Garden centres, for instance, traditionally sell products to cultivate, kill weeds and grow produce. We saw the opportunity to go a step further by providing them with products to preserve what their customers have grown. We have everything to grow it and everything to preserve it. 
 
“If our customers have bought this, can we sell them that. We apply this kind of thinking across our product range.
 
“We have also developed close relation ships with our customers and hold regular discussions on what’s performing well and what’s not, where the next trend is and what will customers be looking for next year.
 
“To maintain this level of service and responsiveness and to cost-effectively hold stock lines for multiple market places, we needed a business structure that would support our commercial relationships, that continues to inspire confidence in us and one that conveys credibility and transparency in the market place.
 
“Just over a year ago and as a result of a professional recommendation, we asked Francis Clark to advise us and, although we found ourselves taking some tough decisions that we might not of otherwise made, the decision to incorporate and the guidance partner Paul Giessler provided throughout the change process has been priceless enabling us to continue to grow and trade from a position of strength,
 
“Paul has really engaged with the business and shown an understanding of the market. We needed guidance and Francis Clark has come up with the goods. Along with our bank and our lawyers, Paul and his colleagues are part of our team”
 
Paul Giessler, partner and head of business services with Francis Clark added: “Sarum Wholesale is a sound business under very good management. It had got to a stage where it needed a business structure that would help achieve its goals in more effective ways. We were able to provide a route to follow and to help deliver a business plan that will carry the business forward.”
 
And the future looks good for Sarum Wholesale. The company will continue to hold its own annual Trade Fair at Salisbury Racecourse which last January attracted 80 suppliers and 150 customers and delivered a normal month’s turnover in a single day.
 
The business has also launched its own Ambassador brand of gardening tools and has developed a non-competitive wholesale catalogue with a Welsh counterpart business to greatly enhance the effectiveness of its sales force on the road.
 
Further information is available by visiting www.sarumwholesale.com