FORT January Newsletter - 2023

FORT Progress Update

January is a big milestone for us, as it means a birthday for FORT, and we turned 3 years old this week with a fantastic cake baked and decorated by Sarah in our accounts department. It didn’t last long in the staff room, but was well appreciated!

We looked back on 2022 in a previous email, but looking forward to 2023 brings a lot of optimism and opportunities albeit with an element of caution as you’ll read below.

Our new trucks are now all branded up and on the road, the showroom in Unit B continues to make progress, and the team are in good spirits as we restart after the Christmas break. The “Get Fit With FORT” programme has got some serious work to do to get the staff back in shape, though!

For those of you interested in such things, Spring Note (the novice racehorse that we support) will be racing locally at Newbury on Wednesday 18th in the 1.15pm Mares’ “National Hunt” Novices’ Hurdle - If you’re able to attend and support her in her journey then find one of the Directors and we’d be delighted to buy you a beer!

General Availability & Price Update

As Christmas 2022 becomes a blur in the rear view mirror, we head into the unknown of 2023. With so much in the media around the cost of living and general despondency we could be excused for wondering if the country is closing down, but of course out in the real world life goes on.

Our Customers still report strong order books and while there have been some signs of stress (cancelled contracts) there does seem to be plenty of work around.

s Fort Estimating is busy and that’s another indicator; people are still wanting to get quotes for work. As we mentioned in our Year In Review, this service can really help you sharpen up your quotes, to make sure they’re profitable.

In general there’s been a slowing off on price increases, in fact some sectors have fallen (timber being an example), but we still strongly urge our customers to be careful on pricing ahead and there are still plenty of increase in the market. Energy costs are at very high historic levels and this particularly affects oil based, concrete and steel products.

Availability in general is good. FORT hold excellent stock levels and with our excellent sales and operational teams we’re able to offer very prompt lead times. But there are bumps in the road. Bricks and roof tiles are possibly the biggest issue currently.