Bingham Enterprises Limited Case study
“I can see clearly now......with the help of The ICE Partnership and MAS!”
The words of the old pop song resonate very much with Mark Bingham, Managing Director of Bingham Enterprises Limited in Pontefract, West Yorkshire.
When asked for a one-word description of the value of ICE to their business, many business-owners usually say that’s impossible – you’ll have to settle for two or three plaudits!
In Mark’s case, however, he didn’t hesitate for a moment: -
“CLARITY!” he said, “ICE metaphorically grabbed the back of my shirt and pulled me back from the detail so I could see the whole picture...”
“Standing back from the inevitable day-to-day business ‘clutter’ enabled me, with Krys Szokalo’s guidance, to see the opportunities that were there – and how best to maximise those opportunities...”
That, though, should not underestimate Mark’s passion for developing and producing well-engineered products, drawing on his early experiences with Rolls-Royce specialising in the design and development of the company’s diesel locomotives.
Bingham Enterprises was founded in 1978 by Mark’s father as a manufacturer of mining equipment and this business was sold to a plc in 1981. A small subsidiary remained within the family, however, and Mark took control of this with a view to more fully utilising his design and engineering skills: -
“We had a few lathes, three people and no order book”, Mark recalls, “So we literally began knocking on doors around the local industrial estates, picked up some contract machining and, in effect, became a small contract machinist.”
An important breakthrough came in the early ‘90s following a period of working with a customer in the road-milling market (the process which skims the top surface off a road prior to re-laying). Bingham’s produced the cutting heads for the road milling machinery and, having successfully refurbished some machinery, Mark was offered the opportunity to take on the manufacture of both the road milling machines and the cutting heads.
In 2000 Mark was also offered the business to purchase outright, thereby buying the IP from his customer and becoming a machinery manufacturer and distributor of road milling machinery in addition to the company’s contract manufacturing services...
Mark and his team also have an entry to the OEM market and are routinely called upon to advise – at design stage – the two dominant hydraulic lifter and loader manufacturers in the world; the one we would automatically think of based in the UK and the other based in France. This is primarily for the design and manufacture of hydraulic attachments for the “diggers” and a market opportunity that could signal significant growth for Bingham’s going forward.
However... Back in 2009 the company hit a problem. As Mark described it,
“The credit crunch nailed us! This primarily due to steel prices doubling as the recession eased and bearing in mind that steel purchases represent some 30% of our sales value...”
With no choice but to put the company into liquidation, Mark is nevertheless upbeat about the way the administrators P&A handled things: -
“They just couldn’t have been more supportive” he says, “...and we couldn’t have asked for more effort from them in order that we could get started again.”
It was decided a pre-pack was the best way forward for the company, and no redundancies were made: - “We’re in a highly specialised sector with a very experienced workforce. If you lose that kind of expertise overnight it’s gone forever” Mark stressed.
With the company in a position to move forward again, Mark made contact with the Manufacturing Advisory Service (MAS) – requesting that an outside review of the business be undertaken by a MAS specialist to identify immediate issues to be dealt with, and to help define a future direction for the business through the development of a manufacturing strategy and road map focussing on which markets the business will operate in, what new product development would take place and what manufacturing, organisational and financial resources would be required.
Says Mark:
“Krys Szokalo was my ‘shrink’ for six months!
Firstly straightening me out, given I was a tad shell-shocked. Then we got the business growing quickly again!”Bingham Enterprises is now in a healthy and profitable position with turnover climbing to above £1.6m. Mark confidently predicts that figure climbing to over £5m across the next 5/6 years based on Original Equipment contracts pending.
So what gets Mark out of bed in the morning? “Plenty” he says, “I mean, who wouldn’t want to get to play with real life diggers and hydraulics all day?!”
“I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to say that The ICE Partnership and MAS saved my business!”
