Quickslide was a business partner of Aperture Trading both as a supplier and customer so we were well acquainted with the business and the issues that it faced.
However, we were also a trading partner of Synseal, the business from which Aperture was formed and it’s worth bearing in mind the qualities that company was based upon and which made it such a success in the early days: and why in due course it went so wrong.
Synseal is widely credited as being an industry ‘disrupter’ when it brought its first products to market. In the hands of the company’s founder Gary Dutton and his team, Synseal disrupted the market not simply by undercutting everyone – although initially this was a significant factor – but over time the company grew and took a significant share of the UK window and door business for itself by showing a number of admirable qualities.
For any business to survive, let alone prosper, in normal trading conditions these qualities include good cash reserves, sound financial control, continuous investment, innovative and imaginative thinking, a dynamic, structured management, great products, a dedicated workforce from the cleaners to the senior managers; and crucially, shareholders that care passionately about and who are involved with the business on a day to day basis.
Sadly, as Synseal in recent years and then finally as Aperture, these key qualities diminished until all that remained at the end was the dedication of the workforce, many of whom I had come to know personally and to whom my deepest sympathies are extended.
My point is that, during the extraordinary circumstances being imposed on all of us during the coronavirus emergency, companies that show the qualities upon which Synseal was based will be the ones that get us through this crisis. I believe passionately in those strengths and they remain at the core of everything that we believe in and do at Quickslide.
We will continue to seek partnerships with companies – suppliers and customers – that also share those attributes because they are the qualities that will not only help to sustain each of us in the short term, they will also enable us to flourish when things return to normal, as they certainly will.
Adrian Barraclough
Chairman, Quickslide
