Heritage watering can business looks to the future
A Smethwick company with a proud history stretching back 130 years is embarking on a major IT investment programme as it gears up for the future.
Haws is known worldwide to gardeners for its premium quality watering cans – and its products can be found in most houses across the UK.
Haws was bought by Eclipse Sprayers in 1982, and the last 35 years of the family-owned business has seen two generations of the Pennock family moving the company forward, with the third generation soon approaching.
The Beakes Road company has invested in new £40,000 IT stock and warehouse management system and has been supported by the Birmingham office of chartered accountants and business advisers Haines Watts.
Haws was established in 1886. Its founder, John Haws, designed and developed a watering can with perfect balance. Whether full, half full or empty, the can could be used without strain. The original design has not been altered in any way since.
Today, the firm employs 45 people, 13 of whom have more than 25 years’ service. The company manufactures an estimated 250,000 watering cans each year coming in all shapes and sizes with the unchanging Haws design at its core.
The traditional can – manufactured in galvanised steel – has been joined by several other designs including in copper, blow and injected moulded plastics. The range has also been complemented by mist sprayers.
Haws’ biggest seller is used for watering houseplants whilst the traditional style is still favoured by professional horticulturists and amateur gardeners. The company exports to more than 40 countries worldwide with products travelling as far as Canada, Australia and China.
Haines Watts has used its Value Plus diagnostic evaluation tool to progress and support a development programme to help the company come to terms with a tough sector whilst progressing its future plans.
David Pennock, managing director of Haws, whose sons Andy and Richard joined the business in 2015, said: “Haines Watts’ strategic planning programme could not have come at a better time, as we were grappling with a tough gardening sector, cheap overseas imports and an increasing cost base, and unsure in which direction to go.
“We had become stuck in our ways and it has been incredibly difficult to change the habits of a life-time. But it has been a very logical process to follow and Haines Watts’ intervention has been invaluable.
"It has provided me and the next generation with the confidence and means to make difficult strategic decisions.
"We now feel more independent and have developed our skill set to achieve our ambitions. The issues that come with succession are less complicated now and we are beginning to build momentum.”
Paul Addison, director of Haines Watts Advisory Services, said: “The biggest challenge facing Haws is to make itself fit for the 21st century, so our approach has been to support the management team with an intensive progressive programme that has reviewed every aspect of their internal operations and external market, and then help them define, set and deliver against agreed goals on where they want the future of Haws to be.”