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FROM MASI!
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To RICHES
Harsh circumstances can make or break a man, and in Roger McDoweirs case, thankfully it was the
former. Dominic Perry
asks him the secret of his success.
There comes a point in most people's lives when. just when you think things couldn't get any worse, the world seems to conspire against you to make everything so much blacker. Imagine, then, if you'd just been politely asked to leave your college course due to your somewhat liberal attitude to work.
You're terrified of telling your parents about this so you start to look for gainful employment in your college town in order to hide your misdemeanour. You get called for an interview for a street sweeping job—surely for an educated college boy, there's no way that this could go wrong? Of course it can: you could get turned down and sent away with the head of the council's cleaning department's words ringing in your ears: "Sort your bloody life out." That might, arguably, rub salt into the wounds.
Crises like these either send you under or make you stronger. Clearly Roger McDowell, boss of Keighley-based R McDowell, experienced the latter effect. In a move that can't help but raise a smile,he's gone from a ticking-off by the head of one council's cleaning department to running a multi-million pound haulage operation—a small part of which involves teaching bin men from other councils how to drive their trucks. Diversification has been the watchword for the company's growth since its inception 22 years ago. McDowell started out, as many do,as an owner-driver having passed his C+E aged 21.The company grew from there with extra vehicles added to the fleet as required on haulage work, unti112 years on. McDowell found himself in charge of 12 trucks. It was then, he explains, that he found himself having to decide on the future of the business:-I had to choose whether we stuck with 12 motors and play about at that level, or really get stuck in and jump up another few leagues. I didn't think we'd survive with just 12 wagons because I could see the way the industry was going: it was turning into a numbers game, with more and more competition coming in where you couldn't hope to make money out of running a small number of trucks.You couldn't give the customers what they wanted because there just wasn't enough breadth to the company."
Thunderbirds are go!
Sitting in what passes for the company's boardroom in its Thunderbird Works headquarters—all black wood, stainless steel and Thunderbirds dolls (see box)—McDowell relaxes, with his feet on a chair, as he expands on his business philosophy:"Years ago, we'd fight for every bit of work and we'd end up losing a job foril on the rate.
"I figured we needed to be cuter, otherwise we'd end up being very busy and not making any money." So different avenues were explored to avoid the 'feeding frenzy' sometimes evident within general haulage. Scottish runs were a speciality to begin with, but rather than simply heading for the central belt like everyone else, McDowell pressed further North. He adds:"Everybody in West Yorkshire is keen to go to Glasgow or Edinburgh but nobody wanted to take loads for Thurso or Aberdeen.
"Once we started doing those daily services it opened up the Highlands and Islands for us —the only other people doing that at the time were TNT, and we could kill their prices." Scottish runs are still an important part of the business, not least the use of rail-freight services for most customer's goods.
However, it's arguably another decision that has had longer-term strategic implications for McDowell. Back in its general haulage days, the firm was working bringing timber to a local furniture manufacturer's piant.This relationship developed into general haulage, and then to running a dedicated fleet of half a dozen trucks, When another furniture manufacturer suffered an eleventh-hour transport crisis. McDowell was perfectly positioned to step in: "They had a big exhibition in Germany a day or so later. We had to pull out all the stops and the wagon left that evening. From there.it just grew and grew and grew," he explains.
Now, rather than simply delivering furniture, the company specialises in fitting it as well. Amongst its clients are the MoD, financial institutions, civil service offices and even the odd RAF base. However, the job demands extremely efficient time-keeping on McDowell's part—office refits often begin at 6pm on a Friday night and need to be finished by 8.30am the following Monday.
It also requires a great deal of specialist kit on the trucks: McDowell reels off a list as long as your arm of what's needed, from doubledeck box trailers through to an enormous number of different tail-lifts—cantilevered, columns and self levellers—which all feature somewhere in the fleet.
Along with the bespoke deliveries and fitting, McDowell also handles all the furniture management for building society Bradford & Bingley. A gain, this has led the firm into areas not traditionally visited by haulage firms; as part of the management contract, it refurbishes damaged furniture for the B&B. This meant setting up a simple production line where, for example, desk legs are resprayed and new tops are fitted,"all simple stuff" as McDowell modestly puts it.An other surprising aspect of the job was having to deal with thousands of waste paper bins coated in chewing gum.
McDowell comments:"I don't know how many thousands of bins we had in here, but we degummed them all and sent them back out again.
"The truth is that most haulage companies don't want to know about doing stuff like this, but we're willing to find a way."
It is, by all accounts, a successful formula, with McDowell now running 50 trucks of its own—a mixture of Mercedes,Daf and Iveco —plus 50 more operated by dedicated subcontractors.
Arguably this willingness to think outside the box is also in evidence at its training school. Set up 18 months ago, it's already started producing a steady stream of new recruits for the company, something previously impossible thanks to that classic insurance 'Catch-22' which states that drivers without experience cannot get behind the wheel.
As McDowell puts it:"We no longer have any restrictions on who we employ."
Alongside simply getting its drivers (and the refuse truck drivers from Calderdale Council) to pass their tests, McDowell says the school also teaches them about aspects of the job not covered by the DVLA syllabus:-It's a full induction to the industry." he says." We go as far as to tell them about lashing things down,moving the fifth wheel, explaining the tachographs and telling them about the business they'll be working in so they understand it.
"There's so many drivers out there who drive trucks, and that's it —they don't know whether the job is well paid, or if they're working for a competitive rate.We've no problem giving our drivers that information."The training, already compatible with the proposed EU driver training directive, also extends to courses in defensive driving. Although McDowell says that there's been the occasional grumble from older drivers about "young upstarts telling us how to drive",most have accepted it.
To sweeten the pill, the drivers are also given an annual £500 bonus if they remain accidentfree,Although the firm paid out over £30,000 in bonuses last year, McDowell says this has been more than paid for by the company's dramatic drop in insurance premiums.
McDowell thinks, along with almost everyone else in the industry, that the WorkingTime Directive will present the biggest challenge to hauliers in the coming years. To cope. the firm is looking to buy two other outfits,one in Scotland and one in the South-West, to give it strategic staging posts. It also envisages more alliances with other operators; it's partly this that has lead to it signing with the Pallet Network to handle its smaller consignments.
McDowell thinks that the imminent rules and regulations will make it hard for others to emulate him. He says: "I feel sorry for some of the smaller firms out there: I've enjoyed myself and it's been a rollercoaster, but I think it's going to be a damn sight harder for them than it was for me when! started. It will be almost impossible for them to do the same."
But.if you'd asked the head of a council's street sweeping department whether McDowell would go on to become the head of a transport firm with a £10m turnover, he'd probably have told you it was impossible too. •