"Of course we can attribute a certain amount of our success to having a core of strong brands," says Ward, "many of whom have been with us since the beginning, and on the whole, excellent relationships with our suppliers. However, it’s far from the whole story. As businesses we are all under pressure at the moment, and it’s at times like these where it’s even more important to remain professional. I believe we need to look at business models outside our own industry and apply them here . . . so often in our industry things are still done on a wing and a prayer due to a mistaken notion that because we’re a bit ‘rock and roll’ and this is the music business, we can get away with it. But looking at the fate of many of our competitors and indeed customers, this isn’t the case any more. We all need to sharpen up, and that means instituting sound financial practice, training staff and implementing proper procedures to make sure that you deliver your promises."
The key to survival, Ward believes - especially for those in distribution - is the ability to add value: "In order to remain successful, the service we offer has to add value to our customers’ business above and beyond merely supplying the product. From our point of view, we have to ensure that we have both the resources and the infrastructure in place to enable us to deliver on all these points and still remain both profitable and competitive.
"More and more we are seeing evidence that product per se is less of an issue than it used to be, especially as technological advances mean that there is often very little to choose between brands. So, you make your choice based on other factors such as the level of support you can expect from the supplier, whether or not your dealings with them are handled professionally and efficiently, all of which can be summed up as the relationship you have with that company. It’s simply not enough to make good product any more. You have to supply good product, good service and still remain competitive. The tougher it gets, the more important it is to have established good business practice in order for your company to stay in shape."
Ward summed up his thoughts by returning to Fuzion’s original philosophy: "We always said when we started Fuzion that the aim of the exercise was to make money and have fun. It’s certainly no fun if you’re not making money, so from the beginning we’ve made sure that we have the structure in place to ensure that we continue to achieve that goal - then we can go and have fun!"
