R Noone & Son

Background

R Noone & Son is a wholesaler of fresh fruit and vegetables. Run by husband and wife Mike and Maggie Noone, the company operates from a unit on New Smithfield Market in East Manchester. Its origins date back to the early 1970s when Mike’s mother set up a market stall in Heywood. The subsequent years have been turbulent.

• Noones soon built up a thriving retail operation of five shops and employing over 30 people
• In the mid 1990s they came under intense pressure from the major supermarkets who had capitalised on extended opening hours and who were now taking business from small retailers. The impact on fruit and vegetable retailers was especially acute; Noones quickly went from a thriving business to a company facing extinction.
• Mike Noone therefore decided to reposition the company as a fruit and vegetables wholesaler. He had already begun to develop some wholesale business by supplying a few local pubs. Mike therefore took the decision to focus entirely on this side of the business.
• Noones closed all its retail outlets and relocated to a warehouse unit in Middleton in 1997. The company soon began to win contracts with hotels, restaurants and schools - and in particular with a major brewery. The business started to grow again and in 2002 it relocated to larger premises on New Smithfield Market

Maggie joined Noones in 2005 as Sales Director to help Mike grow the company. The business invested heavily in quality control and focused hard on providing high quality customer service. As a result Noones continued to expand and by the end of 2008 it had built up a portfolio of nearly four hundred wholesale customers, achieved a turnover of £4.5 million per annum and employed approximately forty people.

Support     

Noones joined the High Growth programme in January 2009. Mike and Maggie wanted some outside help to address a number of constraints on the company’s development. They received ten days of high growth coaching from a coach with first hand experience of the catering sector. Working with their coach, they:

• Developed a vision of the company in 2012. This highlighted the changes they needed to make to the structure of the business, to the roles and responsibilities of the people and to their customer base in order to become a much larger and more profitable company.
• Identified a number of cost savings and ways of starting to increase the company’s profit margins
• Changed the structure of the business giving senior managers much more clearly defined roles and responsibilities. Key managers were made accountable for the performance of their part of the business, allowing Mike and Maggie to devote more of their time to strategic issues rather than the day to day problems
• Began to target major contract opportunities in the public sector and be included in major procurement frameworks in the North West as part of their strategy to create a much more balanced customer base.
• Underwent a customised programme of management development to improve the capabilities of the senior management team

Outcomes    

• As a result of their very first tendering exercise, Noones was appointed as a preferred supplier on a major public sector procurement framework leading to business from the University Of Manchester worth several hundred thousand pounds a year. Now on course to exceed the planned increase in turnover in 2010 - even without any further major wins!
• Recruited a sales executive to help Maggie grow the business
• Improved the operating efficiency of the business including reducing staff absenteeism
• Looking to relocate to larger premises to cope with the growth of the business