Lauralu is the only manufacturer of temporary buildings to control the whole supply chain. We control all aspects of the project. From the manufacturing and delivery of components, to the complete assembly of structures. This is all overseen by our dedicated network of UK and European offices and factories.
Tony Farley – Director of Sales at Lauralu UK, speaks to Warehouse & Logistics News.
What are your best-known products/solutions/services?
Lauralu is an expert in the design, manufacture and installation of temporary buildings – largely working in industrial sectors. However our buildings can be used for education, sports and recreation as well.
Which industry sectors are your customers in and which ones are growing fastest?
Largely manufacturing industries – car manufacturers and their supply chain as well as food and drink manufacturers. However we have such a spread of customers across a whole host of industries. We are fortunate to receive some great incoming enquiries into the business from such niche businesses that you have never heard of. However they are part of this huge cog behind producing some of nations biggest brands whether that’s automotive or food and drink.
What are your most recent product innovations?
Our unique Z-flash water ingress protection system. In our industry especially, having a building that can offer customers zero water ingress back inside and potentially damaging their stock is priceless. Our Z-flash system gives our customer this added peace of mind.
We can now offer what we call ‘Mega-span’ structures which can give our customers the potential for spans over up to 45m wide and to at least 8m to the eaves. This is beneficial to a lot of our customers for bulk storage items and those who want to utilise as much of our clearspan solutions as possible with racking. Plus, and unlike most of our competitors, our structures at Lauralu have no intrusive internal bracing to give you safe and secure movement inside for all vehicles.
What are the major trends and developments affecting your category and your customers, and how are you responding?
Customers are not only price savvy these days they also want a quality, professional and reliable company who also complies to the latest standards for building design and installation. Lauralu prides itself in being able to give our customers this. We design, manufacture and install all our own products which ensures a smooth process from initial enquiry right through to handover onsite. We are one of very few companies in this industry who offer this service and our customers appreciate it.
We listen to our customers and we respond to their needs individually. We are very much customer driven and we make sure we are responsive and diverse in what we can offer.
Can you tell us about any recent customer contracts and how you helped the customer meet their challenges?
We have recently installed a large loading bay canopy at craft beer distributor Beer Hawk. Clearly lockdown drove a huge amount of sales online, including that for craft beer, the loading bay canopy will allow them swifter turnaround for distributing their stock whilst keeping it and their employees dry.
Before lockdown we had worked with Bentley car manufacturing for many months and whilst lockdown delayed the build project, the minute we were back operational we were on site and building a temporary building that would be used for storage and emissions testing. Great news for the British car manufacturing industry.
How does business in 2020 compare to previous years? What’s your strategy for succeeding in the current climate?
Well maybe surprisingly despite Lockdown we are still on track to hit the targets we set ourselves at the beginning of the year. For us as an emerging business in the UK (the factory and office in France has been operational for 25 years) and a growing team of people sourced from within the industry we are seeing growth year on year. Our strategy is very much to keep calm, carry on, get back to our clients quickly, offer them the best solution for the most competitive price. The temporary buildings we manufacture at our own factories in France are top quality, industry leading buildings. Once customers see the Lauralu building up we know they will never use anyone else!
What’s the latest news from your company?
We have spoken about it in a dedicated news piece for Warehouse News online but we’ll say it again – we have been pleasantly surprised by the robustness of the marketplace. It’s not a pat on the back for ourselves but more a great reflection of the UK’s keep calm and carry on attitude. Additionally it’s testament to the desire of these businesses to learn from their mistakes. Over 50% of our business comes from manufacturing companies across a wide spectrum of industries including car manufacturing and its supply chain as well as a host of food and beverage manufacturers. Typically, these business work on a just in time basis for products, parts, stock etc and both Brexit and the sudden dramatic impact of the Coronavirus related lockdown meant that these businesses ground to a halt with all of the stocks used up and the inability or severe difficulty to get more.
Thankfully during lockdown all of our customers continued to pay the rent on the temporary building we have on hire. We know financially it was a tough time for businesses and the uncertainty about income, furlough payments etc so again a pat on the back for these businesses that battened down the hatches, supported their suppliers knowing they needed them by their side to come out of this situation stronger and fighting.
Lauralu
t: 01827 215217
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