As I am sure most of you have already heard, Alspec® acquired Alsun Aluminium in February this year.

Alsun Aluminium has been servicing South East Queensland from the Sunshine Coast for over 15 years and since its beginning the business has been very customer service focused with the motto "If you can’'t find it. Let us source it for you". Sourcing all of its requirements locally from as many suppliers as possible has given us a much wider range of industrial products to offer into the market. This was very successful and opened up a niche market for Alsun that no one else in the industry was offering at the time.

After 7 years the business had grown to a point where an additional branch was required to ensure continued growth into the future. A branch in Brendale (North Brisbane) was opened in 2008 and over the next 12 months Alsun added imported products to its range which allowed for rapid growth with sales over the next few years growing at a rate of 25% year on year. Today we have 17 staff across the 2 sites and sales of close to $13M.

Key Factors to Alsun Aluminium's Success:

• Flexibility - Being able to adapt our business to suit individual customers’ specific needs.
• Responsiveness - We can respond to customers with solutions in a very short amount of time. We have numerous cutting facilities including saws and guillotines that enable Alsun to cut to size, often whilst customers wait.
• Diversity - Because we source from numerous suppliers we are able to offer a very wide range of items that don’t need to be carried on the floor as we can source them on fast lead times.
• Simplicity - The business systems and procedures have been set up to be as user friendly as possible. This ensures that time is not wasted by staff in certain areas of the business and we can be responsive to customer’s needs
• Market Insight - Our team has significant experience in the aluminium industry in SE QLD. This knowledge has enabled Alsun to be successful in many key markets.
• Communication - Both within our business and with suppliers and clients.
• Competitiveness - We focus on ensuring we buy aluminium at the best possible rates from either domestic or offshore supply partners. We also continue to diversify into complementary value added products so we can offer very specific tailor made solutions for our targeted segments.

Since the acquisition in February, Alsun has been able to make some very large and significant improvements to the business. With the support of Alspec®, we have expanded our operation in Brisbane by securing additional shed space, introduced new material handling equipment (side loader and crane equipment) and introduced new team members at both Brendale and Warana. Specifically, these new changes mean that we can safely unload, rack and reload product, improve our stock range (price and quantity) and ensure our service to our customer base is not compromised as we grow.

We are all looking forward to working alongside the various Alspec® teams and we are hopeful that with the success we are experiencing, Alsun can expand operations into other areas in the future to help cement Alspec firmly as Australia’s number one Aluminium distribution business.