Using steel as a manufacturing product has become incredibly common within the construction industry. The ever-growing popularity of this material has led to a wide range of steel fabrication services being available across the UK. As great as this is, it also means that it’s harder to decide where to order steel beams, channels or sections from. If you’re in this situation and are struggling to choose a steel supplier, Buy A Beam are here to explain why local steel fabrication companies could be the best option for you.
Buy A Beam helps customers order steel online from suppliers who are local to their site. We do this by providing an online platform to help you browse the steel fabrication options closest to you before buying fully customisable products for a competitive price to help complete your project.
The steel industry is developing a strong online presence, and Buy A Beam is happy to be part of that change by making it easier for customers and local steel suppliers to come together. Continue reading to learn about five of the advantages that making this decision can provide to your project.
Whenever steel fabrication is required for a project, it’s essential to plan and schedule every step of the process whilst also remembering that unforeseen circumstances can (and probably will) affect the process. When they inevitably happen, it’s reassuring to know that local structural steel fabricators can make any extra pieces of steel that you require available to you as soon as possible.
Using a company based far away from you may result in significant lead times, minimum orders, and long delivery times. Alternatively, ordering from a local steel supplier will mean that any additional required materials can be quickly delivered to the site and aren’t put at risk by the dangers created by long delivery routes.
Working with a local steel supplier will enable more flexible discussions about the types of products you want to receive instead of working with large steel fabricators based miles away. Local steel companies tend to have a more comprehensive selection of products because they deal with multiple suppliers themselves. This allows you to be more specific with your metal fabrication request, helping you get the exact result you’re looking for.
As mentioned above, using a local steel supplier will lead to reduced delivery times. Not only does this mean that you’ll receive your structural steel products faster, but it also lowers the overall carbon footprint of your project, as less energy will be used during transportation.
If there are steel fabrication companies near you that you can order high-quality steel from, doing so will also positively affect the local economy. Using local steel companies helps them keep their business in operation, which goes a long way in driving local business amongst neighbouring companies. This chain ends up helping you again in the long run, as it means that your chosen steel fabrication companies are more likely to still be in operation when you next require quality steel beams, columns and channels.
Reputable local steel suppliers will likely be grateful for your custom, and, as a result, you’ll reap the benefits of excellent customer service. Using online steel suppliers based far away from your site will mean that any issues that occur will be harder to discuss and take longer to resolve.
In comparison, every construction and an industrial project that uses local steel fabricators will benefit from quick response rates and delivery times. This will also create the opportunity to build a positive relationship, leading to a mutually beneficial partnership for any future steel fabrication projects. If that sounds good to you, using Buy A Beam to buy steel online from highly skilled local suppliers could be the solution that you’re looking for.
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Buy A Beam makes it easier than ever to order steel online from local suppliers, connecting you to professional steel fabrication services via our online store. You can use our steel calculator tool to receive instant prices for customisable steel bars, channels and columns, and place your order at any time of day or night. Simply enter your postcode to get started!
I recently met a business owner, Gary, who blew me away with his point of view on the importance of goals and metrics: he believed in them! In fact, he even went so far as to say that his business wouldn't survive without them!
If you have spent any portion of your career in a mid to large sized company, you may not be as impressed as I was with Gary’s point of view. Goals and metrics are foundational business tools for larger companies and your experience is likely that they played a part in most everything the company did. You have almost certainly come to expect a planning season and regular metrics updates. But the entrepreneur is often a different breed.
As a coach to independent business owners, one of the most challenging topics I address with my clients is the need for relevant goals and metrics. Sure they have broad goals: they want to grow their business, they want to earn more this year than they did last year, and they want the business to create value. Ideally, they want that value to be high enough that selling would make a significant contribution to their retirement fund or allow the business to become a self-standing legacy. This list of goals is then often evaluated at a high level, such as “are we better off this year than last year?” or for early stage companies, “is there enough cash at the end of the month to pay the bills?” The concept of establishing concrete and specific goals and measures is often skirted or actively avoided.
In order to achieve their “big dreams,” entrepreneurs need hard metrics to chart their progress along the way. The savvy business owner I referenced earlier told me that when he first embraced the idea of metrics in his business, he introduced 100 of them. Not a typo! In retrospect he admits that he went overboard but that in doing so he learned a very valuable lesson. With 100 metrics he was measuring everything, which at the time he believed allowed him to manage everything that was happening in his business. His ah-ha moment was when he realized that looking at everything was preventing him from focusing on the most important things.
Identifying the right metrics for a business can be a difficult exercise, often leading to default, common measures like revenue or net income. The problem is that these measures are after-the-fact, trailing indicators. More useful metrics are predictive in nature. For example, consider a dentist who defines success based on revenue growth and uses the revenue itself as their only metric. By the time the revenue has grown, or failed to grow, it is already too late to influence the outcome! Tracking chair utilization or the frequency of scheduling the next patient appointment during the current visit can provide early warnings of a potential revenue shortfall. Looking at other industries, a payment processing business could use a volume indicator to determine when they need to add the next employee and a business that is concerned about sales effectiveness could measure lead generation or conversion rates. The list goes on.
It is an art to determine which measures most effectively predict the results you are tracking but what is certain is that there should only be a few of them. When you find the right metrics, you can trust they will lead you to the desired business outcome. Gary describes the benefit of this shift as being similar to the transition from wood to steel in building construction. Prior to the late ’s, when buildings were held up by wooden support beams, multi-story buildings were possible but the maximum height was limited. With the introduction of steel beam construction in the late ’s, far heavier structures could be supported and building heights began to soar.
For business owners trying to build value, “bigger” is better but when all you have is wood, “bigger” buildings end up like the parthenon - sprawling and low. If the overall goal is to create something 50 stories tall, no number of additional wooden columns is going to get you there. In Gary’s case, trying to grow his business by tracking 100 metrics meant assessing every detail of every element of his business. Tracking all of these variables meant that none stood out and he was left with reduced bandwidth for action, even if the 100 metrics indicated that action was required. He simply wasn’t seeing the accelerated growth that he was targeting.
Gary reports that his ah-ha moment led him to switch to 5 metrics from the original 100 and he realized two significant, immediate improvements as a result of this move. First, the business is growing faster because he is focusing on the right areas. Second, and perhaps unexpectedly, he now has more balance in his life. By zeroing in on the most important metrics and viewing the rest as supporting materials, Gary is able to drive the growth of his business at a more rapid pace. In fact, he reported his recent quarter returned the same sales as all of the previous year! Stronger tools produce better results. When you identify the critical measures that drive sales and growth in your business, and measure progress against them, growth is accelerated and you are less likely to be distracted by “nice to have” or less impactful activities.
Gary’s 100 metrics, or wooden beams, guided his early success, but his five metrics, the steel beams of his business, have given him the focus he needs to accelerate his growth.
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