Published on 3 - February - 2010

Exclusive: Cemco look further forward

Builders and plumbers merchant buying group Cemco held the first of its two annual conferences today, taking as the theme "The Day After Tomorrow".

The lightside conference is being held at the Staverton Park Hotel, Daventry and included presentations from Marc Woods, MBE, the paralympian athlete and management information speaker Tom Miller.

A marathon Meet the Merchant session is being held over two days, consisting of 1,200 meetings between merchants and suppliers.

The group says it will be concentrating on "the real business issues and making the time to discuss and find solutions".

Matthew Harrison of AE Spinks is head of the lightside team and told buildersmerchantsjournal.net exclusively why he believes the conference is such an important event for members and suppliers.

"It's important that we have speakers like Marc talking about teamwork and being inspirational as we are all working in a team to some extent. Both in our own busineses and also as a buying group. Cemco people work together on specific projects or bouncing ideas around to find best practice. Going forward, it's so important that we are able to think outside the box and work together with our suppliers to find the best possible deals for all concerned.

"You often hear people talking about buying negotiations as a battleground but we believe our best deals have been struck when we've drawn together with the suppliers to work things out as partners," he said.

Tomorrow(Thursday) will see the presentation of the Lightside Supplier of the year awards - with the names being kept a closely guarded secret for now.

Harrison says that this is only the second year that the awards have been presented. "It's been really good to see how many suppliers have asked what they need to do to be in the running for an award. Some of them have really bought into what we are trying to do and that's very encouraging."

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