Rapid growth and new office for Clarke Oil - specialist oil distributor responding to renewed demand

Written by Jacob Roberts, Business Information Manager, CW Growth Hub

Business is up at Clarke Oil, a family-run specialist oil distributor in Studley, with a passion for their products and an ethos of building close relationships with customers. Clarke Oil is not simply a distributor. They also work very closely with their customers, in a consultative style, to ensure that each customer’s need is fully met.

Through providing such a thorough service, it is perhaps unsurprising that interest in Clarke Oil and their products has skyrocketed. This increase in demand for recently led to them overgrowing their workplace and seeking to expand.

Clarke Oil, employing four people, contacted CW Growth Hub in mid-April 2015 to see what support was available to assist them in growing their business. It was at that time that they were introduced to Phil Peak, Senior Account Manager at CW Growth Hub.

“Rapid growth in a small business can sometimes be difficult to respond to,” Phil said, “Limited resources can restrict capacity, leaving a choice between comfortable stagnation or the uncertainty of continued investment.

“Working with Clarke Oil, I knew straight away that their business was not only well run, but dead-set on growth. My goal was to support Clarke Oil in reinvesting in their business and help them to reap the rewards of sustained growth,” Phil told us.

Having gained an understanding of Clarke Oil and their situation, Phil weighed up the options available to assist them in the expansion of their premises. This then lead to him introducing Clarke Oil to Tim Powell of the University of Warwick Science Park.

Working with Tim, Phil helped Clarke Oil to apply for a grant through the Rural Growth Network (RGN). Their application was accepted and Clarke Oil received £10,000 towards the cost of renovating their workplace. Their brand new office space, located within their warehouse, has now been completed and Clarke Oil is looking at a bright and busy future.

At the opening of their new office space, we spoke to Emily Clarke, co-owner of Clarke Oil.

Emily Clarke said:  "The business had reached a natural plateau. We had reached a point where we needed to grow the business to enable us to expand, pitch for new customers and maintain the existing ones.

"So I did some research and came across the Micro Enterprise Grants. And I'm so glad I did.

"We received a grant which enabled us to develop our IT Infrastructure, allowing us to streamline all of our internal processes, and acquire a new office unit within our existing storage premises.

"The business could move forward again and we were equipped to grow as needed. And that's what has happened. Securing Key Distributor status for two major oil companies and strong vision for growth has all been aided by the support received. .

"But the grant wasn’t just about the money. Every single person we dealt with at the Growth Hub, and the Rural Growth Network were brilliant. We received excellent free advice on all sorts of areas and if the person we were dealing with could not help they always found us somebody who could. 

"It’s been an amazing journey and I couldn't recommend the Micro Enterprise Grants more highly."

The Rural Growth Network is managed by Warwickshire County Council on behalf of the Coventry and Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership and is funded by Defra. The micro enterprise grant scheme is allocated to micro-enterprises, businesses with less than ten employees.