2021 Directory

addressing safety requirements and regulations to keep customers, colleagues and communities safe and build a better tomorrow,” he emphasises. Brexit Looking at Brexit from a standards perspective, French comments that he would hope that the level of standards is at least maintained if not improved. “Continuing to adhere to, if not improve, standard would certainly continue to benefit us as a business,” he says. “People are certainly more interested in having discussions with us about our premium high-end products so maintaining high standards is important to us.” Political landscape French reflects that the changing global political landscape is something everyone in the fluid power equipment industry has been talking about and closely monitoring now for the past three years or so. “For Holmbury as a UK business that imports and exports all over the world, naturally the more free trade there is and the less tariffs that are in place the better,” he says. “I think embracing a protectionist mindset in the UK wouldn’t be a good idea as I’m not sure whether we could effectively revitalise home-grown manufacturing in the short term. So, in the absence of us being able to make many of the things we need ourselves we have to be able to buy things from other countries. We therefore need a reliable and convenient importation regime.” French adds that the fact we previously enjoyed completely free trade in Europe makes that flow of products very convenient from a cost and timeframe perspective. “So, in an ideal world we will continue to benefit from these types of free trade agreements with as many partner countries as possible after the Brexit negotiations,” he says. “However, Brexit is a tricky balancing act in that it is largely about us looking to take back some level of our independence while not weakening our business offerings globally. “As an owner of a business, one craves stability and opportunity, and those things just weren’t in place last year, which resulted in many companies putting projects on hold. This meant it was almost impossible for us and many other companies to forecast where sales were going to be month on month because we couldn’t predict customer buying patterns. Therefore, I do hope that there is a strong level of mutual understanding and cooperation in a post-Brexit environment. It is in everyone’s interest for differences to be ironed out a way that benefits both the UK and the EU. This is of course no easy feat to accomplish, but it is an incredibly important issue.” www.bfpa.co.uk 55

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