Sector: Builders Merchants
Owner: Stark Building Materials UK since 2023
Facts & Figures
HQ: Coventry, UK
Employees: 8,900
Outlets: 500+ stores
Solutions Used
About Jewson
Owned by Stark Building Materials UK, Jewson is one of the largest generalist builders merchants in the UK and has been a partner to the trades for almost 200 years. The business offers expert advice, reliable service, and high-quality building materials to tradespeople across its UK branch network.
“Our reporting used to be sufficient in scope, but we wanted to take it to the next level. We worked closely with GfK to elevate the sales intelligence to give us the granularity we need to analyze performance by category and geographic region. Today, the data is used throughout the company and has enabled us to make improvements in all aspects of our business, specifically around regional planning. We trust GfK to give us the most accurate, reliable market intelligence to ensure we continue to compete in a challenging market environment.”
Nick Snazell
Market Insight and Strategy Director, Stark Building Materials UK
Improving planning with an
expanded dataset
GfK has been a market intelligence partner for Jewson since 2015, providing an accurate and comprehensive view of builders merchants’ performance in the UK. This data is used widely within the business to provide monthly insights for market understanding, performance tracking, and planning. With a sector-wide need for more granular reporting, GfK extended the cover to provide more depth, adding a regional overlay of all the categories. This was really beneficial for Jewson, as there was a longstanding need to understand performance on a regional level, which in turn helped improve planning capabilities and refine sales strategy.
Deepening market intelligence to grow
the business
GfK created and launched a regional version of the existing Builders Merchants report, extending the depth of reporting 10-fold. To ensure it was a commercially viable product, GfK held regular conversations with builders merchants including Jewson. Such was the interest in the enhanced intelligence that several subscribed to the expanded version before its release. The new report offers a whole new level of detail where category performance can be compared by UK region and strategic and tactical plans created based on the findings.
“We trust GfK to provide the market intelligence we need to drive our
business. We have built a working relationship built on trust. I know I
can rely on them to deliver the data and insight we need to stay ahead
in a competitive landscape.”
Nick Snazell
Market Insight and Strategy Director, Stark Building Materials UK
A proactive approach to strategic and
tactical planning
Jewson’s scope of market tracking intelligence expanded substantially overnight. The extended dataset has elevated the way the company uses the tool from a category review tool to one that allows more proactive planning on both strategic and tactical levels. Jewson’s regional, market intelligence and category manager teams use the report monthly to assess performance. The category managers have the information they need for more selective, regional category planning
An excellent working relationship
Jewson and GfK have been working together for almost 10 years. During that time, the two companies have built a relationship that allows Jewson to better understand the market. There are regular calls and presentations to the category managers, finance and procurement teams.
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