As is well-documented, Sheffield’s industrial heritage has been built on our region’s steel manufacturing, but what is perhaps lesser known is the city’s wealth of expertise when it comes to predicting the fluctuations in international steel markets. We spoke to Jayne Craven, Director of MEPS International, a leading international steel market analysis company based in the Steel City, to find how the business developed from its inception in 1979, her background before taking over the reins from her father, and what the future holds for MEPS.
Hi Jayne. Can you start by telling us how MEPS began life?
MEPS was established by my father, Peter Fish, in 1979. It started off as Management, Engineering and Product Services. He wanted to be able to attract as much business as possible at that point, as he didn’t know where the business would go. He targeted the steel industry because that’s where he had built his career. He started as a draftsman, but even taught maths and sold insurance in the evening when we were kids to bring in extra money. However, his primary experience and passion lay in engineering, becoming Production Director for Firth Vickers in his early thirties.
How did the business become involved in researching the steel markets?
Back then, it wasn’t labelled as entrepreneurial; instead, it was about seizing opportunities wherever they arose and putting in the hours. Today, you would say that Peter had an entrepreneurial spirit. He’d thrown his net out to catch whatever business he could, whether that was consultancy work or providing technical drawings. In the early 80s, with is wide knowledge of the steel industry he secured a consultancy job with the European Commission.
There was an issue with pricing and price fixing at that time and the European Commission appointed MEPS to research the steel market. Peter was given authority to go into the steel industry and steel mills to look at their invoices and start collecting European steel prices.Of course, the EU eventually said, we’re happy now with where the industry is, we don’t need that information anymore.
This is, I suppose, where Peter was entrepreneurial, because he thought, well, we’ve got all this data, we’ve got all these contacts, why don’t we do something with it rather than just moving onto the next job?
They stayed in contact with the companies, continued to collect the information, and created a publication called European Steel Review. At that time, it just had steel prices and commentary, which he developed from there to the portfolio of products we offer today.
“Being in Sheffield has always helped MEPS; we have traditionally recruited from the steel industry, and we continue to do so. That’s not the case at our competitors.”
How was the review then used?
MEPS started out by selling the European Steel Review on a 12-month subscription basis. After that success, the decision was made to expand. We’ve now got European Steel review, and a supplement that covers some of the other European countries that are not in that original publication, along with the Stainless Steel Review, International Steel Review and the Developing Markets Steel Review, which we have plans to rebrand as a lot of those countries can no long be classified as developing. With the emergence of the internet, the business also decided to create online products which could provide instant access to steel prices if the customer paid by card.
Who are your typical customers?
Anybody who is buying or selling steel. We do serve some financial sector clients but that’s not really where our market is. Our market is somebody who is physically selling steel, is buying it to make something or stocking it.
Why is this information vital to them?
If you are buying or selling steel, certainly if you are buying steel, you would buy MEPS publications for two reasons: the first one would be to know what the price of the steel is today, because you want to go and buy some. If we’re saying, for instance, the price is less than it was last month, but your supplier suggests otherwise or proposes an increase, our insights give you knowledge and confidence to negotiate.
We also provide price forecasts. If you don’t need to buy now, you know you don’t want to be buying at the top of the market, so people might hold off buying if they know when the top of the market is and when prices are going to drop. Certainly, if you’re selling steel, you’ll also want to know where the top and bottom of the market is.
Our subscribers might buy steel from stock, but they’ll also procure their material they need through longer-term contracts. In that instance, they might actually write into the contract that the price will fluctuate based on MEPS index for the term of that contract, so they’re not having to constantly renegotiate.
Your father set up the business in the late 1970s and it developed to what it’s become today – how did you become involved?
I came into the business because he came to retirement age. He’d been pestering to get me or my sister into the business for quite a long time, because he didn’t want to sell the company. He knew that if he sold MEPS, the staff in Sheffield would likely not be kept on and he didn’t want that to happen. Ultimately, I joined the business and, as you might expect from someone who remains hugely passionate about the steel industry and considers MEPS ‘his baby’, Peter didn’t retire early. At the age of 84 he still likes to come into the office.
I was probably best placed to join the MEPS business because I have a management background. I spent most of my career, outside of MEPS, in the energy business. Starting with Yorkshire Electricity, I was in the industry for about 15 years.
Within that time, I was a call centre manager, marketing manager and a commercial manager. From that, I learned the importance of customer service.
“We’re a worldwide company, so the economic environment here in Sheffield doesn’t affect us, but from a personal point of view, I like that Sheffield is building on its heritage with the Advanced Manufacturing Park opening in 2006. I think there should be more manufacturing, not just in Sheffield but across the country.”
When the energy industry opened to competition, I was in marketing. Our in-house call centre didn’t want to handle the calls generated from the television adverts and leaflet campaigns that we were doing, so I set up an external agency to handle those calls.
Once that was all set up, I went on maternity leave. By the time I returned to work, the market had been open for six to nine months and, as Yorkshire Electricity didn’t promise you your old job back – just a role at the same level – I went back into sales, managing three external agencies with a budget of £10 to £12 million.
The first thing that I realised upon starting my new role was that they’d got a backlog of mis-selling complaints. At that time, everybody was with their incumbent supplier but if you signed a dual fuel contract, you were always going to save money, so it was unexpected that there would be so many mis-selling complaints.
The first job was to streamline the process by splitting up the team to made sure we were dealing with new complaints, while also dealing with the backlog. It was then a case of making sure the sales process was more robust to stop further complaints.
Around this time, npower bought Yorkshire Electricity and made large-scale redundancies. It was a difficult time but, in true tradition of the Yorkshire humour, someone placed a post-it note above the light switch saying “will the last person out please switch off the lights”.
Because I was heavily involved with the department’s integration into npower, I continued to work for the business, joining their sales team as commercial manager. When they, not long after, bought Northern Electric, I was also given the task of integrating that business into npower.
Once that was integrated, as commercial manager, I liaised between sales and customer services. There was no Yorkshire office at that point, and I was always driving up to Newcastle, going down to Worcester, or going to Birmingham, but my home was still in Yorkshire. Eventually, they said to me, “your job is not in Yorkshire, your job’s in Worcester, we want you to relocate”.
My son was young, and my support network, was back in Yorkshire. My husband was a self-employed electrical contractor, so his business was also in Yorkshire, so we decided that wasn’t the right choice for us.
While I was deciding all of this, one of the agencies who I used to manage approached me and asked if I would join them as a client service director. It made sense, so I took my redundancy package. On the Friday I was in a meeting, working for npower, and then on the Monday morning I was back in a meeting with the same people, just on the other side of the desk with the external agents.
I worked for them for two and a half years before there was a change of MD. The previous MD lived in Nottingham and he was very focused on the Sheffield office being the primary office for the work activity. The new MD was based down in High Wycombe and we knew then that she was going to close the Sheffield office. I didn’t move to Worcester, so I certainly wasn’t moving to High Wycombe! My dad was 67 by that time and he was still pestering me to move to MEPS, so in 2006, I did.
How do you think all that experience helped when you came to MEPS?
Peter was an engineer and he loved what he did on the steel price side of things, but I don’t really think he liked the business management side of things, so it worked perfectly. I came in with management experience and just started changing things quite slowly. I couldn’t come in like a Tasmanian devil because it had been working fine up to that point, but it was clear that some changes needed to be made.
“Ultimately, I joined the business and, as you might expect from someone who remains hugely passionate about the steel industry and considers MEPS ‘his baby’, Peter didn’t retire early. At the age of 84 he still likes to come into the office.”
What changes did you bring then?
Originally, it was making sure that the business had a company policy document, contracts were up to date, making sure that health and safety was right, making sure that there’s more management information, and making sure that somebody was on top of jobs. It was all about ensuring that we had proper processes in place, that we weren’t missing a trick somehow, and we were doing things in the most efficient way possible.
The business looks nothing like it did when I joined. We have recruited 19 staff since I joined 18 years ago. One of the things that we did when we brought in Joe (Rugg – Head of Marketing), was to get a new website, which we were quite scared of because our Google ranking was high. But that’s been a great success.
From a structural point of view, the business has changed quite a lot as it has grown. Although we try to maintain as flat a structure as possible to facilitate quick decision making, we now have formal policies and procedures in place and constantly look to see how we can improve. We develop staff and encourage them to go on training courses. We’ve got four IT projects on the go right now, and we’ve just introduced a CRM system. We’re redesigning the customer portal so that all our products are available on there, and we plan to provide more functionality for the clients, so that they can create graphs and personalised dashboards. We want to keep it simple, but if a client wants to, the new portal will allow them to do more with the data.
We’re also embracing and investigating AI from a forecasting point of view. Is a pure AI model a preferable way to forecast? I think, in the end, it will be a mix; we will always have someone at the end of that process who is critiquing the numbers who knows the market. But who knows what AI will bring. We’re keeping an open mind and watching this space.
We’ve currently got four to five thousand clients and we’ve got some really exciting things happening.
How do you get the data to your clients currently?
We offer two options. Our premium publications are currently delivered as a monthly PDF with an accompanying Excel spreadsheet. This service is priced at around £1,400, depending on the specific report. However, recognising that not everyone requires or can afford a premium product, we also provide online prices and forecasts. These are accessed via our online portal, providing a cost-effective steel price information service to all, irrespective of their budget constraints. While they may not provide as much in-depth insights and data, at £280 for a 12-month subscription to a price table and £450 for a forecast, they are highly affordable alternative.
Our aim is to provide value and flexibility to our subscribers, so the online portal allows them to cherry pick the services they require – from a regional or steel product type perspective – to create a very bespoke package. If they require more support, or a personal consultation, we ensure that we’re always available.
You’ve had very few people leave the business over the years – why do you think that is?
We look after our staff well and we pay them well. They get a November bonus every year, but as the company has become more successful, we’ll often give staff an extra profit-share bonus, which is discretionary. We’re not one of those companies where the owner is driving round in a Ferrari, while paying staff minimum wage.
It’s a fun environment to work in. We’ve also brought in other benefits like homeworking days and death in service insurance policy. If people work over, they can claim that time back as a late start, early finish or a TOIL Day (time off in lieu). We also have flex days to allow staff to deal with personal matters during the working day. We’ve only had one person leave in the last 13 years.
“We’ve currently got four to five thousand clients and we’ve got some really exciting things happening.”
The industry you’re in has obviously been hugely important to Sheffield, and that landscape has changed dramatically over the years, do you still see any benefit of being in Sheffield?
Being in Sheffield has always helped MEPS; we have traditionally recruited from the steel industry, and we continue to do so. That’s not the case at our competitors. We think it’s important, because if you talk to someone who is buying and selling steel, it’s better if you’re speaking to somebody who understands the market – and who better than those who use to buy or sell steel, or at least used to be in the industry? That’s a USP for us.
Being from Sheffield always adds credibility to the business. Steel knowledge is important and being confident enough to speak about the market and being able to question what people are telling us is important. That’s why it’s crucial to know the industry. Our staff can ask those important questions.
We’re a worldwide company, so the economic environment here in Sheffield doesn’t affect us, but from a personal point of view, I like that Sheffield is building on its heritage with the Advanced Manufacturing Park opening in 2006. I think there should be more manufacturing, not just in Sheffield but across the country.
