StrategyOur business strategy is focused on five core areas

Focus on international markets

We are becoming an increasingly global business; 70% of our revenues are derived from international markets, up from just 40% in 2000. We now have direct operations in 32 countries with distributors giving us an indirect presence in 37 more.

The countries that we operate within represent around 90% of the world's GDP, therefore there is significant opportunity to grow within our existing international markets. Over the last five years our international business has achieved average annual sales growth at around double the rate of average annual global GDP growth. We are expecting that our international revenue share will continue to grow.

We continue to benefit from the regionalisation of our European business and have recently expanded into the large and growing Eastern European market with operations in Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic.

Our North American business continues to grow by exploiting its unique network of local sales offices, supplier relationships and eCommerce to attract new customers and expand our business with existing customers. We recently launched a local language, local currency website in Mexico.

We have a leading market position in Asia Pacific. This is our most diverse business region both geographically and culturally and our sales offices are able to offer same day despatch to our customers across twelve countries. We have recently doubled our warehouse capacity in Shanghai, building on our leading position in China.