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Soler & Palau Ltd is the UK subsidiary of
the Soler & Palau Ventilation Group of
companies. Established in 1985 Soler & Palau Ltd
have been supplying a wide range of specialist fan and air moving products like
Kitchen Extract, Canopy Ventilation, Kitchen Fan, Decentralised MEV,
Plate Fan, Cased Axial Fan, air Handling, Demand Ventilation and
Heat Recovery Ventilation to a
diverse national and international OEM client base.
UK Head Office
Soler & Palau (UK) Ltd's operations are
based on the prestigious Ransomes Europark Business Estate in Ipswich, Suffolk.
From this geographically strategic location products are imported from the
various European and Pan Pacific Soler & Palau
group manufacturing facilities and stocked at the company's extensive warehouse
premises in Ipswich. The stocking of this comprehensive range of products
permits the overnight delivery of many popular model sizes to anywhere in the
mainland UK.
Good business relationships
It is very easy to forget, particularly in tough times, the value of long term
partnerships between manufacturers and distributors in the H&V market.
Customer Service
At Soler & Palau Ltd we take pride in the
fact that our customers only receive the very highest standards of customer
service and care. Our internal and external technical and customer services team
are on-hand to provide professional and experienced application advice to enable
our customers to apply our products to their particular ventilation and air
movement applications. As the UK sales, marketing and distribution division of
the Soler & Palau group of companies we are
committed to providing only the very highest levels of customer service. This
commitment in providing only the very highest standards of customer service is,
we believe, key to building good business relationships.
Doomed Distributors?
Trust and respect are often the first victims when manufacturers bypass
distributors in order to maintain margins, undercut competitors and ‘shorten the
route to market’. Some will take business ‘direct’ on a project by project basis
according to contract value. Others shun distributors altogether and attempt to
win business by generating tight specifications. Projects are then tracked and
chased through by the manufacturer to the contractor to ensure that the business
is won. Yet another approach is for the manufacturer to own and control a
network of distributor branches thus allowing them the freedom to pick and
choose what business can be taken direct.
Invincible Manufacturers?
Underlying each of the attitudes outlined above is a slightly cynical and
bullying attitude of some manufacturers towards distributors, many of whom have
no alternative but to put up with the situation or risk losing access to
important brand names and product ranges. Chasing specifications and individual
projects is very time-consuming for manufacturers and the associated costs are
high. However, this strategy does allow manufacturers working direct to charge a
much higher price for their products as there is no independent and
knowledgeable distributor in the process to weigh up or challenge the value for
the End-User. This often results in hugely expensive and unnecessary equipment
being specified and supplied for which alternatives would have been available
from a local distributor at half the price. As for the manufacturer-owned
distributor it’s an uphill battle to retain any independence and once again the
relationship between manufacturer and distributor is compromised. All these
alternatives to a strong partnership between manufacturer and distributor seem
to be short sighted and designed to provide only short term gains.
Stronger together
Mutual respect and recognition are the foundations on which manufacturer /
distributor loyalty is built. The successful and strong partnership will empower
both to produce results that are greater than the sum of their parts; the
manufacturer can provide an extensive and innovative product range, sales and
technical support as well as competitive prices but the distributor provides
local representation and promotion, regular customer contact, technical
expertise and stock holding. Together that has to be a winning combination that
makes the alternatives look fragile by comparison. |
