Caledonian director Derrick Bartlett told TTJ the company is seeking to recruit several external sales staff and possibly an internal salesperson at Tilbury to build stronger relationships with customers.
"It is difficult times for everybody in the industry," Mr Bartlett said. "We are not planning on sitting back and moaning about it; we have decided to be more aggressive and do something about it.
He said Caledonian had a good customer base but needed more sales staff on the ground.
Additional staff will cover the south-east, south-west, central England, Midlands and Scottish regions and, like existing external sales staff, will be armed with iPads to access latest stock information.
Caledonian is also reviewing its entire IT facilities, while the joinery manufacturing arm producing doors and doorsets at Leeds has been expanded with an additional 8,000ft2 building. The building will be a logistics and storage hub for the factory nearby, freeing up factory floor space and speeding up production.
Mr Bartlett said door and doorset production output had grown 30-40% this year and sales had risen by 40-50%. New machinery is also planned for the factory.
He estimated the company’s current turnover to be in the £37-40m range.
"Overall, we have had to work double hard to stand still," he added.
