Author: Tim Day, Senior Business Analyst, Strategic Contracts Department, HAYLEY DEXIS
As someone who joined the business 32 years ago, HAYLEY DEXIS turning 50 is a terrific milestone, and it’s safe to say that today, we’re a long way from solely selling seals and bearings. It has taken me back to my 20’s – a world of Cardex records, a one-person diagnostic machine, and mucking in wherever needed for customers.
What astonishes me, apart from my now black Country accent, is the transformation I’ve witnessed from then to now, all without losing the personal and local touch. It makes me proud, as not every business can say they’re regularly opening new branches half a century later. So, where did my journey start?
Trade Counter to Analyst
As a Norfolk lad at 23, my HAYLEY DEXIS journey started at the King’s Lynn branch, which had been open for around 12 months at the time and consisted of eight people (including now Joint Managing Director, Gary Quinlan). Our focus as a business was seals and bearings, and back then, there weren’t exact job descriptions. As a small team, we all had to “much in”, which meant helping customers on the trade counter, delivering goods to customers, and taking in deliveries. On reflection, my time working across all these areas gave me a full appreciation early on of the teamwork, technical detail, and an understanding of our customers’ challenges from the ground up. Today, the King’s Lynn office has over 40 people working in the team, and it’s still a vital branch in the network.
Twelve months on, and I’d moved to the Black Country, where pronouncing Rs in ‘Laugh’ and ‘Bath’ was a particular point of comedy for my colleagues. In all honest, moving away from family at 24 was a significant life change, and it’s fair to say my new family for a while became Hayley. Gary, in particular, has been a mainstay in my work life at Hayley, going above and beyond, and even lending me his own car at one point (less said about the accident in the snow, the better!).
Shortly after, I spent seven years at Gloucester, ending up as Branch Manager, but still rooting myself in the Black Country and commuting every day.
Today, I’m a Senior Business Analyst in the Strategic Contracts Department. I work on tenders, from a pricing perspective, for some of the biggest global brands. It might seem a big departure from the trade counter at 23, but in reality, it’s the same customer support, on a larger scale.
Reactive to Preventative
The sprinkle of UK branches around in the 90s were strategically placed to provide reactive support to local businesses (very much like today) – responding to customer breakdowns with a healthy stockholding of critical parts. Most of those breakdowns were concerned with seals, bearings, and then motors, but even in the 90s, this was a 24/7 operation with call-outs in the dead of night to get businesses back up and running.
The support was very much reactive back then, and we’d do anything to be the number one choice for customers who needed help in their hour of need. If we didn’t have a suitable replacement for a failed component available off-the-shelf, I vividly remember the team all banding together and using our contacts to secure one for the customer. Back then, we didn’t have the benefit of £40m+ worth of group stock at our fingertips, but we weren’t any less determined to prove ourselves as a complete support provider for local industry.
Today, HAYLEY DEXIS has over 50 branches and specialist centres, and we have retained the same customer-focused mentality – to do whatever it takes in an hour of need. Over the years, our offering has evolved to address customer challenges and foster a closer partnership, adopting a more preventative approach that considers asset life extension among many other strategic areas.
A One-Person Diagnostic Machine
The past 32 years have seen significant changes, not only in customers’ needs and challenges, but also in the loss of some local mainstays. Businesses relying on machinery face a difficult landscape today, and we’re committed to supporting them – our customers are our lifeblood.
50 years on, we have new technology, processes, and analysts to diagnose or even predict the failure of machinery, keeping businesses moving. But back in the 90s, there was one man who was a powerhouse in diagnostics. This one-person analysis machine was our Hayley colleague, Ken Murray. Using a Vernier gauge for height and dimensions, and a feeler gauge to determine the size of small gaps between objects, he would help the customer understand why a bearing had gone down and the reasons for fatigue.
HAYLEY DEXIS’ success today was built on the foundation of deep care and knowledge in people like Ken Murray, and today, that is no different. It makes me proud to know I’ve played a part in being one of the UK’s foremost value-added MRO providers of leading-brand engineering components, consumables, and related support services – long may it continue.
Interested? You can find your local HAYLEY DEXIS branch here.