Well if you haven’t read on because his is an amazing story.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s he transformed William Cook, a well-established family manufacturer of steel castings, into a market leader – when all was against him.
At that time, of course, the UK economy was really tough, rather like now; output in the industry had been falling. On taking over the company, Cook went completely against the trend and invested in increased efficiency, quality and capacity in the lowest-value segment – all at a time when capacity was double the volume of industry sales.
Rivals thought he was mad. Indeed, conventional thinking would have dictated that Cook milk the business and leave the industry or switch to a higher-value and differentiated niche.
Remember, too, that William Cook couldn’t boast the image of a BMW or an Apple among its customers; neither was it a technological leader, nor did it possess some secret process to guarantee extra income. Nonetheless, Andrew Cook backed his intuition. In a few months, his efforts began to yield results.
His investment, within a hostile environment, transformed the business. Within a few years, sales had risen by 10% against industry losses. He was the first to invest in BS5750. Within a couple of years, he had acquired two of his major competitors and by the 1990s, he had become the market leader.
“What did he do?” you ask. It’s really quite straightforward….I’ll tell you next time as I’ve gone on for long enough.
By for now
Andy
