Bradbury showed touch of steel after loss of customer

FOR many companies, losing £1m after their biggest client’s business collapsed would have been a death sentence.
Bradbury Group Ltd is one of the UKs leading manufacturers of steel doorsBradbury Group Ltd is one of the UKs leading manufacturers of steel doors
Bradbury Group Ltd is one of the UKs leading manufacturers of steel doors

However, Scunthorpe-based Bradbury UK – which manufactures steel doors and other security products – has gone from strength to strength since it suffered that severe blow in 2001.

Not only has Bradbury risen phoenix-like from the flames, it has taken off and soared since then – despite the tough economic climate.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“Our biggest growth has come in the last three years. Our turnover in 2011 was £6m,” said managing director Tim Strawson.

“This year it will be about £12m, so we’ve doubled it in two years.

“It’s not down to growth in demand at all. Some of our competitors have gone bust. I think we have been a bit lucky, quite aggressive in terms of trying to win business, and we focus on getting it right first time for our customers.”

Mr Strawson credits that approach with helping the business to grow through the recession. “We’ve had our successes and our failures,” he said.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“Our own personal recession didn’t necessarily follow the same recessionary course as the country. It’s more dependent on how well we’re managing the business.”

Mr Strawson has had more than 20 years of practice with Bradbury to learn the best way to manage the firm.

He set it up in 1991, having bought the assets of a small Luton metalworking business for £2,500.

At the time, that company was only making a security grill which Mr Strawson said “wasn’t a very good one” so he spent almost a year researching and developing a better product.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“I think in our first year we hardly sold anything, then in the second year we had sales of about £140,000 and in the third year it was about £400,000. It quite quickly grew,” he said.

In 1994, Mr Strawson relocated the firm to larger premises in Scunthorpe, closer to his native Lincolnshire.

Towards the end of the 1990s, there was a turning point: the company supplied a cage for a large American data centre which was opening its first branch in London.

“We ended up making a new style of cage for them which throughout 2000 we rolled out all over the world – America, Japan, Australia, Europe,” said Mr Strawson.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“We were extremely busy making thousands of cages for internet data centres.

“We took on a few other customers but the American firm was our biggest.

“Unfortunately, they went bust in 2001.”

It took Bradbury around three years to recover from that loss.

Turnover had risen from £1.8m to £5m within a year, but immediately dropped to £2.6m.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

However, the company found a new direction and began to focus on steel doors. Since then, it hasn’t looked back.

With turnover increasing again, Bradbury UK steadily invested in new equipment and, crucially, extra space to ensure it could cater for customers’ needs.

It invested nearly £1m in equipment in 2006 and in 2011, and Mr Strawson plans to do the same again this year and next – including an extra 25,000 sq ft of space at Bradbury’s Scunthorpe headquarters.

A Yorkshire Forward Smart Award of £80,000 in 2007 helped to scale up production.