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To market, to market
Page 48
Page 49
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Britcom International's expansion and investment in new sectors has helped boost profit, employee confidence and brand awareness.
Words / images: Dave Young Since moving to purpose-built premises at Market W'eighton near Hull, long-established vehicle and construction plant supplier Britcom International has grasped the opportunity to reinvent itself. The immediate reward has been a 30% rise in sales; the longer-term task is to make potential markets aware of the diverse specialisms it can offer.
Britcom's blue-chip clients include Renault, MAN it was the first non-dealer in the country to do an approved TGA conversion Volvo construction equipment, Burstwick freight services, Morrison and Tesco.
When CM visited, Britcom's 14-acre site was full of A Axor units do well tractor units from the two supermarkets it has large dein Britcom's traditional flecting contracts with. Axor units, with their tried-andexport markets tested V6 and range-change box, and Cummins-FullerRockwell ERFs, do well in Britcom's traditional export markets, says operations director Chris Unwin.
-We're better known in Nairobi than Market Weighton. We've been a well-kept secret," says marketing manager Rachel Reed. Appointed to strengthen the managerial team, Reed intends to alter this perception, aided by the many strings Britcom has to its bow.
Established in 1981 as a vehicle exporter still a key component of the business and now serving Eastern Europe as well as traditional southern hemisphere markets Britcom had a £27m turnover in 2006/07 and has expanded into vehicle engineering, painting and refurbishment, UK truck and construction plant sales. aftermarket sales and support.
To deliver these added-value services to customers Britcom has invested in two key areas of infrastructure: on-site facilities and equipment, including state-of-the-art computer software; and training and accreditation. Factorin agencies for several nationally known companies, such as Edbro tipping gear and Effer cranes, and it seems Britcorn's claim to be a one-stop-shop for customers requiring equipment unavailable off-the-peg is not just rhetoric.
One of its most important recent acquisitions is the least obvious; Britcom's use of Solidworks 3D mechanical design software, a sophisticated program reaching beyond conventional CAD capabilities to enable designs to be validated and tested. This enables Britcom to line tune bodywork adaptations to the particular needs of customers as disparate as crane operators and steel stockholders.
This section of the business is managed by Brent Carmichael, a career engineer who is happy to seek the opinions of drivers as well as clients at the research and development stage to produce bespoke trucks, such as a drawbar container lifter for Southampton-based Crossway Transport.
The menu of engineering expertise offered to customers includes: II Trailer building and design services specialists in caravan and plant trailers • Bodybuilding and design services specialists in plant bodies • Artie to rigid conversions • Drawbar conversions • RHD to LHD conversions • Wheelbase extensions and reductions • Tag axle, mid-axle and steering axle fitting • Hydraulic tipping gear and wet kits Another project is a programme of fridge trailer refurbishments for supermarket retailer Morrisons.
The Britcom complex includes shot-blasting and paint shops capable of accommodating full-length drawbar rigs. These are managed by Fran Johnson, who has specialist experience of motorsport transporter fabrication. Painting and signwriting is produced by a team which can turn its hands to respraying mobile cranes within tight deadlines to ensure plant is in the workshop for the minimum time.
Sales director Paul Mercer says investment in such facilities is possible because the company is privately owned.
Britcom believes training, apprenticeships and accreditation, including BS and BSI are important; apprentices can expand their career in the various areas of the enterprise.
Carmichael says: "We help our staff develop as no one else does what we do; we offer a multi-agency service."
Mercer amplifies the point: "Legislation on bodybuilders is getting tighter, but we are ready for it, the higher the bar is raised the better for us as we work professionally. ISO accreditation helps keep us disciplined."
Quality of work Competence and experience in being able to guide customers through the bureaucracy and statutory regulations — anything from C&U regulations, type approvals, good relations with Vosa, to sorting out export credits and foreign exchange — is as important as the quality of work.
In addition to straightforward exports — either complete or in CKD form — Britcom's multilingual staff can offer overseas customers aftersales support and spares. The second-hand export market has changed radically in recent years and Britcom has adapted service Levels to meet the demand for higher standard products.
Unwin explains the thinking behind exports of more than 1,500 chassis a year. "We arc aiming for higher-level customers with similar values to ours. We are not flogging old tat to ignorant people. Our overseas customers are as interested in fuel consumption as UK operators. We deal with professional firms and have good customer relationships based on trust."
Britcom's new headquarters enable it to become more environmentally aware. Water from the truck washes is reused in a closed-circuit system. as are the shot-blasting abrasives; toxic materials are dealt with according to EPA regulations; and paint tins are crushed for recycling.
For the future, Britcom's small, highly-skilled management team sees increasing export opportunities in Nigeria and Eastern Europe for higher specification trucks. In the home market it hopes to build on its reputation for purpose-built vehicles to service customers such as the caravan manufacturing industry The plant side, including its own range of dealerships, is also expanding at home and abroad, and offers customers the benefit of the same engineering, painting and documentation services.
Although the company has not done much advertising, it plans to expand beyond repeat orders and personal recommendations and Reed aims to include more interactivity to the firm's website and take the brand to shows, including this year's SED. •