Scottish Grass Machinery (SGM) has invested £250,000 in two new workshops in Inverness and Aberdeen to support contracts recently won with Highland and Aberdeenshire Councils. The new facilities will provide equipment and a full customer service supporting the two council contracts and SGM’s golf customers across the north of Scotland.
Over the past decade SGM has become firmly established as one of the top three Ransomes and Jacobsen dealers across Europe and is one of the largest in the UK, supplying turf maintenance equipment, personnel and utility vehicles to the golf and local authority markets. The business was created by David McInroy and Alex Pollock in February 1992, following a management buy out from Perth-based Frew Group.
From the outset SGM was determined to rid the industry of its poor reputation by adding the highest levels of customer service to the provision of top quality machinery. Its success has seen it grow into a £10 million turnover business which supplies over 80% of all Scottish local authorities and nearly all of the country’s finest golf courses.
In addition the business has moved into the contract hire of equipment through its SGM Finance division, a highly successful joint venture with the Bank of Scotland, and has introduced a wide range of industrial equipment through SGM Industrial. SGM Finance provides customers with brand new equipment with no capital outlay, backed by a full aftercare service, all maintenance and operator training.
David McInroy, managing director, SGM Group, said, “As a business we continually try to look forward to anticipate what our customers will need from us in the future. Over the last decade this has seen us introduce levels of service which only a decade on are now becoming the norm. We have also responded to local authorities, in particular, not having the capital sums with which to purchase equipment that they had in the past through SGM Finance and have broadened our product range into the industrial sector too.
“We will never stand still and are continually looking for growth opportunities and are very keen to expand our SGM Finance operation throughout the UK, and possibly into Europe, creating an internationally significant supplier from our base in Scotland.”