Chris Ashworth
BSc(Hons) DipM FCIM MIMC Chartered Marketer
Founder of Competitive Advantage in 1999, Chris has 30 years sales and marketing experience gained in the construction industry.
Chris is one of the industry’s leading authorities on Specification Selling, regularly speaking at seminars for organisations such as the Association of Interior Specialists, Council for Aluminium in Building, RIBA Enterprises and CIMCIG.
He runs training programmes for the Builders Merchants Federation, is an Associate Lecturer at Oxford Brookes University and a member of the organising committee for the Chartered Institute of Marketing Construction Industry Group (CIMCIG). He is also a regular contributor to industry journals, including Construction News.
Joining Chubb Fire in 1979 as a marketing graduate, Chris initially worked in their specialist fire fighting vehicle division, and then progressing onto the export division, travelling overseas, principally to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states.
Working for Cape from 1984 to 1993, he held front line marketing and key account positions, with responsibility for existing and new products in the building sector. He then took responsibility for development of the company’s Asian business, covering the region from Singapore up to Japan and down to New Zealand. Over a period of 5 years, he developed new markets and opened offices in Singapore and Hong Kong, where he was resident for 3 years. During this period, he more than doubled the company’s sales in the region.
Returning to the UK in 1991 as National Sales Manager, he managed a sales team selling to specifiers, distributors and contractors. Subsequently, as Head of Marketing, he revitalised Cape Boards’ technical services department and implemented a CRM system.
He was recruited into Saint-Gobain Glass UK as Director of Marketing in 1994. He developed and led a programme which took the UK company out of commodity products into added value, establishing leadership in a number of niche markets, through specification selling. While there, he formed and managed a specification sales team, set up a CRM system and developed a programme to improve the company’s internal communications.
Since 1999, Chris has been an independent consultant, implementing strategy, undertaking research projects and providing training for leading manufacturing and service organisations in the building industry.
He has established a Key Account Management approach, helping to develop sales of added value products, has implemented pricing strategy and reorganised marketing departments of merging businesses.
His research projects focus on customer issues and have helped him gain a good insight into the factors that affect the decision making of Specifiers, Contractors and Distributors.
He runs a series of training programmes on marketing and sales issues, in a construction industry context, including specification sales, key account management and distributor development.
