Is this about improving our warehouse or depot operations?

No. Sarn Group's work is commercial and strategic: how you sell, how you keep customers, and where growth comes from. Operational change comes into it where the business needs to deliver on the promise it has made to customers, rather than as a process improvement exercise in its own right.

Our customers buy on price. Can a customer proposition really change that?

It does not take price out of the conversation. What it changes is what else is in the conversation. When the proposition is built on what customers themselves say they value, and the sales team can hold that line consistently, the comparison stops being purely a rate card.

We sell through a depot or branch network. Does that make this harder?

It is usually the reason to do it. A network gives you reach and local relationships, and it also gives you variation. Much of the value in this work is making the customer experience consistent across the network without stripping out what makes each depot effective locally.

Do you work with logistics providers, or with the businesses that supply them?

Both. Equipment and automation suppliers, the service and rental businesses around them, and the distribution and logistics operators themselves. The commercial questions are close cousins: long contracts, renewal risk, aftermarket value, and a proposition that needs to say something distinct.

How do you gather voice of customer insight without asking too much of our customers?

By designing the contact strategy around how your customers prefer to engage. Some will give an hour face to face, some will answer a short call, some will respond to video or email. The aim is honest, usable insight from a genuine cross section of customers, not a survey and a hope.

Three professionals in a modern warehouse discussing logistics near conveyor belt with packages

Sector

Consultancy for intralogistics and supply chain businesses

Customer proposition, retention and commercial growth for materials handling and supply chain businesses.

The sale is the start of the relationship, not the end of it

Intralogistics covers the equipment, systems and people that move goods within a site: materials handling fleets, racking and storage, conveyors and automation, and the service, parts and rental operations built around them. Widen the lens to the supply chain and it takes in distribution, warehousing and the logistics providers keeping goods moving between sites. The commercial shape is much the same across all of it. Customers are not buying a machine, they are buying years of uptime, and the contract that follows the sale is where most of the value sits.

That changes where growth comes from. New customers matter, but the larger commercial prize is usually already on the books: renewal at the end of a term, a bigger share of a customer's fleet or network, and the service, parts and rental revenue attached to it. Most businesses in this sector are not organised that way. The commercial effort leans towards new equipment sales, the customer proposition is written internally in the language of uptime

percentages and response times, and the people with the most customer contact, the service engineers and depot teams, sit outside the commercial conversation. Procurement, meanwhile, is doing its best to reduce a complex offer to a rate card.

Sarn Group has worked in this sector at scale. The engagement with Briggs Equipment UK ran across three years and covered a bespoke customer contact strategy using email, voice, video and face-to-face meetings, a voice of customer programme, and a new customer proposition built on the words customers used themselves, then embedded through the sales teams. That is the shape of work this sector tends to need, and it is work Sarn Group has already done.

Large warehouse facility with multiple loading docks and white delivery trucks, surrounded by stacked palletized cargo and industrial landscape

The pressures we see most often

The detail differs between an equipment dealer, an automation supplier and a logistics operator, but the commercial pressures rhyme.

Growth planned around new sales, not the installed base

The aftermarket carries the margin, yet the growth plan is built almost entirely around new equipment and new contracts. Retention and share of fleet are hoped for rather than planned.

Renewals treated as an event rather than a process

The account gets serious attention in the closing months of a contract, by which point the customer has already formed a view and often invited others to quote.

A proposition written in your words, not your customers'

Uptime figures, response times and service level tables that read much like every competitor's. Nothing in it tells a customer why this partner rather than another one.

Procurement reducing a complex offer to a rate

Years of value get compared on unit price and hourly rate, because that is the only part of the offer anyone has made easy to compare.

Service engineers hold the relationship but not the conversation

The engineer on site is the most frequent and often the most trusted point of contact in the business, and usually the least involved in the account plan.

Inconsistency across depots, branches and regions

The customer's experience depends on which depot picks up the phone. For multi-site customers that variation is visible, and it costs renewals.

How Sarn Group helps intralogistics and supply chain businesses

The work starts with what your customers genuinely value, then builds the commercial structure and operational discipline to deliver it consistently, contract after contract.

Strategic & Commercial Development

A clear growth strategy, sharper market positioning and a practical plan your team can act on.

Operational Transformation

Structured sales processes, stronger internal frameworks and change that is genuinely embedded, not just launched.

Customer Insight & Growth Alignment

Voice-of-customer programmes that align your proposition and sales messaging with what your market actually wants.

Woman in tan sweater smiling during business meeting

The leaders we work with

Sarn Group typically works with Managing Directors and commercial leaders in materials handling, equipment services and logistics businesses, including divisional leaders inside larger groups and international parents who carry a number for both new sales and the aftermarket. The work also suits owner-led dealers and distributors who know their service reputation is strong and want the commercial performance to match it.

Experience in the sector

Sarn Group's experience here spans materials handling, industrial equipment and distribution businesses in the UK and internationally. It includes an ongoing engagement with Briggs Equipment UK Ltd, now in its fifth year, covering customer insight, proposition development and commercial rollout.

Common Questions

Is this about improving our warehouse or depot operations?: No. Sarn Group's work is commercial and strategic: how you sell, how you keep customers, and where growth comes from. Operational change comes into it where the business needs to deliver on the promise it has made to customers, rather than as a process improvement exercise in its own right.
Our customers buy on price. Can a customer proposition really change that?: It does not take price out of the conversation. What it changes is what else is in the conversation. When the proposition is built on what customers themselves say they value, and the sales team can hold that line consistently, the comparison stops being purely a rate card.
We sell through a depot or branch network. Does that make this harder?: It is usually the reason to do it. A network gives you reach and local relationships, and it also gives you variation. Much of the value in this work is making the customer experience consistent across the network without stripping out what makes each depot effective locally.
Do you work with logistics providers, or with the businesses that supply them?: Both. Equipment and automation suppliers, the service and rental businesses around them, and the distribution and logistics operators themselves. The commercial questions are close cousins: long contracts, renewal risk, aftermarket value, and a proposition that needs to say something distinct.
How do you gather voice of customer insight without asking too much of our customers?: By designing the contact strategy around how your customers prefer to engage. Some will give an hour face to face, some will answer a short call, some will respond to video or email. The aim is honest, usable insight from a genuine cross section of customers, not a survey and a hope.

“Neil helped us build and deploy a new customer proposition, shaped by the voice of our customers. He kept our sales team honest to it too: ‘This might be your business, but these are your customers’ words.’ He is enabling the growth we deserve.”

Leigh Edgley

Managing Director, Materials Handling, Briggs Equipment UK Ltd

Worth a conversation

If retention, customer proposition or commercial direction is on your mind, a short conversation is usually enough to tell whether there is something here worth pursuing.