Pain turns to gain as firm gets in shape to face future
Brother UK boss reveals strategy for surviving effects of global pandemic
THE boss of Brother UK has revealed how Covid forced him to make a “painful” decision over staff redundancies, but that he predicts a bright future for the firm - which still has strong links with previous partner Manchester City.
Phil Jones MBE is managing director of the famed printer, scanner and sewing machine maker, known by many as the 1990s shirt sponsor of City - an “iconic” shirt Mr Jones believes to still be the club’s second best-selling.
In an exclusive interview with BusinessLive, Mr Jones laid out how the Tameside firm, whose parent company’s HQ is in Japan, dealt with the global pandemic.
According to Mr Jones, his initial approach was one of caution - and said because of that, the Audenshaw business has still to this day not taken a penny of Government support.
He said: “I made the decision very early on that our financial resources were very good, we had a really strong balance sheet and good cash reserves. I was lucky in that sense.
“So I made the decision not to draw on any government support whatsoever. Although we sent everyone to work from home in the very first instance, we still continued to pay full wages.
“One thing I’ve learned is you’ve got to do a bit of strategic sensing not overreact and you’ve got to let situations play out a bit.”
Mr Jones gave it six months before making significant changes following an extensive review of business which meant 17 employees - 10% per cent of the workforce - losing their jobs.
He said: “It meant we could have a better view of the landscape.
“At the half year point I ran a reorganisation where we reviewed the entire organisation and approximately 10 per cent of our work force departed.
“That was quite painful. But from my point of view, it was about making sure that we’ve got the right cost organisation for the future.”
He said the pandemic had been a “game of two halves” for Brother, adding: “The first half saw people buy printers and they were almost becoming the toilet roll of the technology industry with how fast they were being sold.
“The sales of our home office printers were going through the roof, at the same time that the sale of our office printers was crashing through the floor, which was interesting.
“Then we were dealing with the fact that the supply chain couldn’t restock what we sold - there were big problems at the ports, ships weren’t sailing and all of these supply chain issues were really exposed.”
While Mr Jones is positive for the future, Brother is not yet out of the woods - and he expects some of those issues to continue.
“I am a positive pragmatist. I’ve been around a long time, and I’ve been through many difficult times in my working career including things like the financial crash, devaluation of the pound.
“We’ve got great optimism. The pandemic has given us an opportunity to really reshape the business and reorientate our people and allowed us to demonstrate our value to the people who work with us in our internal community, and our external community too.
“But there are still Covid-related issues.
“One of the little-known impacts in global supply chains at the moment is there are a lot of empty containers sat in ports in Europe.
“As a result, the ports are very congested. And, as a result, we’re not getting goods through the ports anywhere near the pace that we would normally do.
“Add into that the difficulties that all ports now have with regards to Brexit and that means many of our inbound deliveries are delayed by up to one month.”
Mr Jones also touched on the firm’s relationship with City.
Brother has a long-running connection with the club, having appeared as the main sponsor on the sky blue shirts between 1987 and 1999.
The partnership was certainly helped by City fans Noel and Liam Gallagher, who did various photoshoots wearing the shirts.
Mr Jones said: “We look back very fondly on that period.
“When I joined the company in ‘94, obviously that sponsorship was still in play and I used to go to Maine Road and do some of the Man of the Match awards, which was absolutely fabulous.
“But all good things must come to an end. It served us so well. I think what’s amazing is that even today, the fans still associate Brother with the club. I think it did a really good job for us. And I wish the club ever so well.”