'Balls are in our hands', says Aldridge
Clients and suppliers can help businesses cut their costs and stimulate ideas from employees on how to keep expenditure down. That’s the view of Jason Aldridge, the managing director of Coventry-based Arrowsmith Engineering.
Speaking at an Insider round table event at Birmingham's Hotel du Vin, Aldridge said that during the recession his business "put its balls in its hands" and invested in the future, rather that retreating into itself.
He said: "Cost cutting during the recession actually cost us a fortune, but it needed to be done. The biggest impact on the bottom line we saw was when we invited our customers to come in and look at our business and tell us where they thought we could save money. They put 1,600 man hours into our business, but we got 100 per cent more input from them than we would if we’d looked at it ourselves."
Aldridge also said that a visit from suppliers also brought about a change in mindset from his employees.
"What they see when suppliers come in, what they see is the person paying their wages, and we did seem to get more ideas on cost savings from our workforce when that happened.
"However, I do think the decisions have to come from the board of any company. We invested more during the recession to make money in the long run – we’re constantly thinking about the future."
Arrowsmith mainly supplies to the aerospace industry, and can count Rolls-Royce, Goodrich, Eaton and Umeco amongst its clients.
