'TOTAL PACKAG
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• Like Frank Bruno Trimoco is a heavyweight, training hard to stay light on its feet. It is one of 52 'extra heavy truck' franchises scattered liberally through Iveco Ford Truck's 117-strong dealer network, and the firm is finding that specialisation is a tough but rewarding taskmaster.
"Moving from a car and truck franchise in Chelmsford for Ford to being a standalone truck dealer," says Trimoco's managing director Ian Jones, "has concentrated all our minds on truck profitability." In the past the lorry figures were lumped in together with the car and light van accounts at year-end. That luxury does not exist any more and Jones' Chelmsford dealership is a truck venture plain and simple, though it does retain the long-wheelbase Transit at the bottom of its range.
To ensure that those minds remain concentrated on the correct wavelength, Jones says that he is continuously "emphasising that the departmental profit sheet is the important objective".
Trimoco, which has two other Iveco Ford dealerships in Leeds and Dunstable as well as its main base at Chelmsford, is determined to grasp every opportunity that it can. "Bringing Iveco and Ford together has given us a wider range of vehicles to sell and it has definitely attracted more customers," says Jones.
Trimoco is confident that it now has the correct "total package". Jones is keen to "lock in" as many of his customers as possible, offering them an array of aftersales packages such as fixed price service contracts. Companies such as Sovereign Chickens, Thompson Builders Merchants and Shand Biggs Wall have all decided to cash in on the Trimoco Iveco Ford Truck offer. "The full-life operating costs of the vehicle are very important in the average purchaser's mind at the moment," says Jones, "and we reckon we are as good as anybody." Best sellers for the Trimoco group at present are the 0811 7.5-tonne Cargo, the Iveco 2030 twinsteer and the Iveco top-of-the-range TurboStar. The Cargo is doing well on volume sales and the two Iveco models are noteworthy because they have gone down surprisingly well for the company, which was obviously expecting a slower build-up on its Iveco sales figures. "We have sold 16 Iveco trucks in the first five months of the year to date," says Jones, smiling. "A lot of the Cargo successes can be attributed to constant product improvements — putting disc brakes all round on the 08 to 10 series has attracted a lot of people. Fitting Rockwell axles to the same trucks has been well received and the overall cab trim is much better nowadays. Customer awareness has never been more acute."
Van sales have had their ups and downs for Trimoco since the IFT merger went through 12 months ago. "We've really done quite well on the Iveco 49.10," says Jones, "but sales of the Iveco Z range have been really slow. I think that that might be because our salesmen are very much Transit-orientated: and we don't really sell the Iveco Dailies because they are direct opposition to our traditional Ford vehicles."
Jones also thinks that Iveco Ford's ever-changing dealer initiatives help keep the network on its toes rather effectively. The cash bribe of 27,500 every quarter in the group's "Go for excellence" programme is a particularly welcome incentive scheme. IFC checks each dealership every quarter on good housekeeping points including opening hours, stock controls and stock levels, training programmes, signage and salesmen with HGV licences, to name but a few, and gives the franchise the full whack if it gets full marks. The worse you do, the less you get.
His thoughts at the end of year one of the Iveco Ford calendar? "Refreshingly pleased, we are now looking for a return on funds employed in excess of 20%," he says.