2023 has been a momentous year for DSales. In the year that the company has come of age – celebrating its 18th year in business, a milestone that coincides with the 75th anniversary of the Develop brand, it has achieved a record-breaking turnover and significantly increased the brand’s share of the market.
Logo evolution
Sales Director James Hosking said that 2023 has been a record year. “There is no doubt that the past few years have been the most challenging in our history. However, we have continued to do what we do best and provide our partners with the support they need.
“We have ridden out the storm of lockdowns, office closures, and the supply chain issues, and we have emerged stronger. Turnover this year has exceeded our expectations and indeed surpassed pre-COVID levels, stock levels are now back to normal, and our offering is really resonating with the print channel.”
Humble beginnings
It’s no secret that DSales was born from humble beginnings. In fact, 
Managing Director Jonathan Whitworth often recalls during the early days working out of a shed in his back garden that the hardest thing was dealing with cashflow. In an earlier interview with PITR he said: “I closed over £2 million of business from that shed! I can remember waiting for the postman to deliver the cheques so I could quickly cash them in order to buy more stock.”
DSales’ partner base initially grew from personal contacts and relationships built over Jonathan’s then 20-year tenure in the market and over the years it has continued to welcome new partners into the fold. This year in particular the company has signed deals with a number of new dealers. “We regularly transact with around 120 key channel partners, several of whom have been with us since the very beginning,” Marketing Manager Glenn Kershaw explained.
“Partner loyalty is really strong, many of our dealers have become close friends as well as business partners and we’re really proud of that. What we’ve found this year in particular is that we’ve attracted a number of new partners who are now choosing Develop as their leading brand, and that’s largely down to the personal service we provide and our commitment to going the extra mile and supporting them to win new business,” he added.
In terms of the value-add DSales offers, Glenn noted in particular the fact it has a fully-stocked warehouse. “We pride ourselves on providing a next-day delivery service to our dealer network and we also continue to offer a comprehensive PDI service for our dealers. In addition, we are renowned for the technical training we provide, something we had to put on hold during the pandemic, however we re-commenced in-house classroom training earlier this year and have a full programme of training courses planned.”
Original DSales HQ
Moving with the times Glenn adds that DSales’ company culture is also very people-centric. “From day one Jonathan has had a keen focus on building a strong tight-knit team. We are now 15-strong and just like we have built a lot of loyalty within our partner base, the same applies to our own team, the majority of us have been with the business for a long time. For example, General Manager Caroline Morris has been at Jonathan’s side since 2007, our National Technical Manager Dean Ranton has racked up 15 years, I’ve been here for 13 years, and James [Hosking] has just marked his eighth year.”
Just prior to the pandemic Jonathan’s son Archie joined the business. He gained experience in all areas of the business and, having earned his stripes, he was recently appointed Dealer Sales Manager for the North.
“We have completed an internal restructure, an initiative designed to enable us to become even more efficient as a complete team and enable us to better serve our partners,”
James explained.
“I now oversee the entire sales operation but continue to manage several key accounts. And we have two dealer sales managers – Archie, who looks after our dealers in the north and Gary Smith, who manages relationships with our southern-based dealer partners. Glenn heads up marketing and we have also redefined roles within our technical team, which has in turn enabled us to further enhance the technical support and training we provide our partners.”
Strong offering
In terms of hardware, DSales offering spans a wide range of A4 and A3 MFPs. “I firmly believe that we have something for everyone – Develop devices are robust, high quality, reliable, and economic to run. Despite some market trends indicating a preference for A4 vs A3 devices, we’ve found that both our A3 and A4 sales are growing at a similar pace,” James said.
Looking ahead to 2024, James indicates that there are a number of new exciting additions planned. “We are currently working with a number of new potential partners to further expand and extend our offering so we can open up even more opportunities for our partners to differentiate.”
Whilst it’s too early to share the finer details, James did reveal that we can expect DSales to expand its solutions, software and services offering. “All this is very exciting for us, we, however, still remain laser focused on our core products and historical roots of remaining a dealer only business, a very rare thing in this competitive industry,” he said.
James continued: “We are also looking to formalise a new nationwide service provision that our partners can tap into. Many of our dealers have customers with multiple branches/offices nationwide and in cases where they don’t have field engineers close to every location, on an ad-hoc and informal basis other partners support them by providing on-site service as and when required. It’s very much a reciprocal arrangement and it does work well; however, after speaking to our dealers, we recognise that this is an area where we could add yet more value and so we are looking into how we can best support them moving forward. All will be revealed in the coming weeks/ months,” he added.
Charity support and sponsorship
DSales has a long history of giving back and supporting local charities. In particular the business has long championed the Joining Jack campaign. Jonathan has served as a trustee for over ten years and has helped the charity to raise millions of pounds to support research into Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and alongside the entire DSales team, regularly takes part in fundraising activities. The business also actively supports Overgate Hospice which is local to HQ.
Sponsorship also plays an important part in the marketing mix. DSales continues to be strong supporters of grassroots sports and partnered with racer Daniel Lloyd for his assault on
the 2023 Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship (BTCC). Develop branding took a prominent position on the Team HARD-run Cupra Leon that he drove in the ten-round, 30-race BTCC season.
Daniel Lloyd joined forces with DSales mid-way through the 2022 campaign when he was forced to launch a new fundraising drive to deal with the after-effects of a huge accident at Oulton Park, which saw Jonathan reach out to the 30-year-old about getting involved to support him.
“We really enjoyed being involved with Daniel for the final two rounds of 2022, and to know we were part of ‘the team’ that had got him out there when he won the last race of the season at
Brands Hatch was brilliant,” he said. “It’s been great for us as a business to have signed up as a partner for a full season, and it has been hugely exciting to be with Daniel and see his achievements this year. As well as doing the business on track, we have seen first-hand how Daniel works to be an ambassador for his partners and we are looking forward to our partnership developing further.”
An exciting year ahead
As the year in which DSales marks two key anniversaries draws to a close, Jonathan says he is excited to see what 2024 will bring.
“We are very proud that DSales has become an established player in the marketplace. We have enjoyed consistent growth year on year, and we fully intend to keep on growing and expanding our business,” he said.
“We have lots in the pipeline for the coming year. In the Spring we will be hosting our partners at a dedicated mini expo during which we will showcase a raft of new hardware and software solutions and we will also reinforce our position in the burgeoning industrial print and labelling market.
“Our focus is firmly on making sure we have what our dealers want – their success is our success and as we enter the new year, as a team we will work collectively to continue to deliver the exacting service levels our partners want and need,” he concluded.
