Joined the IBA on 1St October 2008
Left the IBA on 31 March 2020
IBA CASE STUDY CONTACT 19
“IBA wish Contact 19 continued success upon leaving the Group after 12 years of valued friendship & membership”
After 11 years with the IBA, Nigel Weir, said:
After working for various electrical wholesalers for nearly 20 years I decided to buy a small electrical wholesaler in West London. “How hard can it be I said? I am sure I could make a good go of it.”
Well the first couple of years were especially tough. I had never had to do VAT returns, PAYE or employ staff directly. I had always worked for larger companies that had people to do this. I also had the added pressures of building a customer base, marketing the company and buying the stock in at the right price.
A friend in the industry could see I was struggling, and suggested I look to join a buying group, as it will take away some of the extra work by providing essential services to the business, like competitive purchasing deals; opening doors with manufacturers that would not look twice at my size business.
I started to research buying groups and shortlisted three that I felt would be a good fit with my growing business. It was very quickly apparent that the IBA Buying Group were the best match by far. Great supplier deals with the industry’s leading names, along with an extensive range of extra benefits that are in place to make the members lives just that little easier. Lots of them I used to take for granted, like a decent branded product catalogue. Help and support from the included Electrical Distributors Association membership are a superb addition, which includes all forms of business legal advice and help with staff training.
Being a member of the IBA has helped loads over the years. Yes, the rebate payments are great; they paid the annual Corporation Tax bill and more, but the best part of the group is being with like-minded business people. Just talking to loads of people that are in the same position as you, means you really are not on your own. The IBA is a family of electrical wholesalers, run by the members.
After 11 years of group membership I was sad to say goodbye, but felt it was time to concentrate developing our growing online businesses selling garden lighting systems. I am confident that getting this far would have been a whole lot harder without the IBA family, for this I owe my thanks.
