Supplier Spotlight – Cable Services Ltd

We had a quick Q&A with Wayne Robinson, Operations Director at Cable Services Limited, a business which has been providing us with cable and electrical materials across all our depots, since inception 12 years ago.

Q: Where are you based and how long have you been in business?

Cable Services started just over 50 years ago and was formed by Joe and Lily Williams in 1971 operating from a small box room at their home in Wrexham with the garage serving as a stockroom. Fast forward 50 years and now the head office and 42,000 Sq ft warehouse is located on Wrexham Industrial Estate, with further branches in Glasgow, Liverpool, Stone and Swindon.

Q: How long has Cable Services worked with Aptus and what service do you provide?

We have had a successful partnership with Aptus for over 12 years, serviced by our branch in Liverpool. We supply cables and all other associated jointing materials.

Q: What have you supplied Aptus most recently with?

Waveform, Service Cables, Resin and all other jointing materials.

Q: What makes your business different from other electrical services materials providers?

What sets us apart from others is our knowledge and experienced staff members who have worked within the industry for several years. For example, in our Liverpool branch, we have over 100 years of knowledge from the members of staff, which gives our customers both peace of mind and satisfaction that we know the products which we are selling to them. We pride ourselves on being a “one stop shop” for their specialist electrical needs.

Q: What problems do you solve for construction industry clients?

Through our relationship with our suppliers, we are at the forefront of any innovative products that our suppliers are bringing out to the marketplace. We have state-of-the-art training facilities at both our Glasgow and Wrexham sites, to offer courses which have been specifically designed to accommodate training from low voltage through to 132kV which enables customers to train their staff in the UK on our suite of products.

Q: What challenges is your industry facing?

The last two years have been very difficult for the industry, not only with Covid, but also Brexit having a massive effect on the supply chain. To minimise the disruption to the market, we continuously speak and manage our supply chain with our worldwide suppliers and try to manage the expectations of our customers to the best of our ability. Recent price rises are on a scale never seen before in our industry, but we always ensure that we give as much warning as possible to our customers, with evidence from our supply partners if required.

Q: How do you overcome these issues?

We have a network of branches throughout the UK which enables us to place stock in each of our warehouses to meet the needs of our customer base. It is important to not only be close with our suppliers, but know what our customers want. We can try and manage timeframes and stock control to minimise any disruption caused by the factors we have faced over the last couple of years. We hold stock in excess of £6.5million throughout our branch network. We constantly monitor stock levels and up stock when needed to attempt to smooth any supply issues.

Q: Anything you’d like to mention that we may have missed?

We have a cable cutting facility at our Wrexham head office, which enables us to add additional flexibility to our customers to ensure they receive the required lengths of cables for any single project.

Published on 28th April 2022