Professional Builders Merchant

So it would appear that merchant conferences are rather like London buses — you wait ages for one to come along and then two arrive at once. Okay, that is quite an easy and obvious joke to make, but there is a perverse irony — not least in the timing — of the announcement by both BMF and NMBS that they are both planning separate summer events approximately one week apart in June 2012.

First, some background. Traditionally the preserve of the BMF, NMBS first launched its own conference in 2001 with a function in Edinburgh. The following year, its event found a floating home on a Mediterranean cruise liner and this was followed by tours of duty in Athens and Portugal before a ‘unification’ in 2005 with the inaugural THE Conference event in Cyprus. Jointly organised by BMF, NMBS and Unimer, the reasoning behind it was that the common belief amongst merchants and suppliers alike was that the industry did not need — and could not support — two broadly comparable events…

Ultimately, the recession put paid to the annual merchant meeting, with THE Conference 2008 the last event. Now, whilst recovery remains far from assured, there is an emerging confidence that a corner has finally been turned. For an industry that does its business best by face to face meeting and interaction, the appetite for a return to the summer events of the past appeared to be growing.

It was a fairly open secret that the BMF was canvassing industry opinion, and it was also pretty well known that many in the independent sector were looking at hosting an event. Then, within the space of a couple of days, both NMBS and BMF announced that plans were in place.

Both state they are acting on the feedback from their members and their proposals naturally reflect their position within the sector. NMBS proposes an event to solely represent the independent segment — after all, why should it put resource behind an event that encourages the participation of the national chains? The BMF conference meanwhile matches its own, broader remit — but has also publically stated an intention to facilitate elements specific to independents, specifically stating an intention to engage the support of NMBS (and Unimer) in doing so.

Basically, neither party is wrong in its intent and so far (at the time of writing in mid-April), no quarter is being given and each organisation is pressing on with their own, separate events.

However, it seems impossible that two events can be supported to levels — in terms of the necessary sponsorship and number of delegates — for both to be a success. And two events chasing the same sponsors, delegates and possibly even speakers will surely only be weaker as a consequence as some opt for A and others opt for B. It’s like a bad episode of Mike Reid’s Runaround… gggggo!!!

What is particularly unedifying is the danger that the former THE Conference partners will be selling against one another at a time when the merchant industry needs to working together. All too often, the construction industry has failed in its lobbying to government because it lacked a single, cohesive voice, with too many factions and splinter groups diluting a message that was often actually universal to all — a point made explicitly by the MP Gordon Banks at a lunch hosted by NBG.

So at a time when the sector faces numerous extraneous threats — online trading, B&Q’s TradePoint proposition and, not least, a market still stuttering to recovery — we are now failing to present a united front within our own corner of construction. How must that look on the outside?

To reiterate, the organisations are not wrong in their intention and there are of course significant differences in their reach, membership and goals. Yet as the industry has been unable to support one event during the last three years — when a forum for discussing best practice would actually have been quite beneficial — it seems counter-productive to expect essentially the same pool of businesses and individuals to now participate in two within a fortnight.

Common sense has to prevail, and somehow the BMF and NMBS must come to a solution that works well for each but results in a single event. Otherwise, the inevitable conclusion is that two conferences is one event too many.