Cumbria-based financial experts Armstrong Watson work with family businesses all over the country.

John W Laycock, based in Keighley in Yorkshire, has been run by the Sugden dynasty since the turn of the 20th century.

With a business as old as John W Laycock, the history of the firm can weigh heavily on the shoulders of its owners.

Established as a limited business in 1810 by its namesake, John W Laycock can trace its roots back to 1746 with evidence of the Laycock family making nails.

Today the firm still sells nails but has now expanded and supplies everything from girders and sheet steel to wheelbarrows, grinding wheels and any kind of engineering supplies.

The Keighley-based business, which is a client of Armstrong Watson, transferred from the Laycock family to the Sugden family at the turn of the 20th century when the Laycock line ran out and the current managing director’s grandfather took over the business.

It has been in the Sugden family ever since and is run by managing director Mark Sugden, 46 and his nephew - and also a director at the firm - David Sugden, representing the third and fourth Sugden generations in charge of the business.

It’s something you cannot take lightly, as managing director Mark highlights.

Mark said: “It’s a really sobering thing. This September has marked my 10th year back at the business after working in the south of England for 15 years in a different industry and it’s a responsibility not just for you to come in and do your best for now, but to do it for the future as well.

“Understanding where you come from presents challenges; moving from one generation to another, it can be a real challenge for everybody to pass the responsibility on.

“You feel the weight of history of course, absolutely you do, but there’s a duty to continue the spirit and the values of the company and I love the challenge that duty brings.”

He adds: “While passing on from one generation to the next has its challenges, we’ve managed it successfully here, we’ve been able to bring new ideas and new ways of doing things but maintaining the spirit of the business through the owners.”

To remain at the forefront of the industry, the firm has committed itself to a vision to become the “experts in high-quality steel supply” and the 14 members of the Laycock team all subscribe to the ethos.

While John W Laycock was once known as a stockholder, the business now prides itself on recognising its role as a service provider.


Mark said: “The focus has shifted in our minds from product to service and we’ve realised that we’ve had the capability but not always recognised it before.

“We’ve always done great work for our customers but we thought of ourselves as a product provider, but it’s actually the service that customers are buying.

“We’re doing a lot now that we were doing 30 years ago, or even 130 years ago, but we’re just thinking about it differently.

“We’re trying to keep the principles of a traditional family business but developing the business where it needs it in order to meet customers’ changing requirements.”

The firm joined Armstrong Watson’s Blue programme on July 23, 2014. The two Directors have taken time out of the business every quarter since then to review, challenge and plan at a strategic level.

The managing director credits the programme with “transforming” how the team acts together and how the firm has reinterpreted its role in the industry.

With a supplier base as wide as the customer base, the firm knows exactly how to supply its customers and holds the strapline of “first-class service in steel”, something Mr Sugden is surprised more businesses haven’t embraced.

“It amazes me how many steel suppliers I’ll ring up and I’ll just hear ‘No, we don’t do that’ down the phone instead of taking a step back and asking a few more questions and being creative.”

Creative solutions have become a key part of the Laycock service. One such initiative has seen the firm invest in a worldwide database of steel specifications.

This means that while the company is small, it can search steel grades from Australia to America and the UAE and find a UK equivalent meaning that the business can work with everyone from building developers and major engineering companies to the Ministry of Defence.

Despite the international contacts, the firm remains rooted in the local business community and is committed to its future in steel.

Mark said: “By the way in which we conduct ourselves on a daily basis, we’re able to take part in a bigger thing.

“If you’re staying true to your principles, taking part and contributing to the wider community as a whole, you benefit from a bottom-up effect.

“I think the way in which we operate, we try to do it in the right way to fit ourselves into a world that will continue to become better over time.”

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