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Aguest at Pauline Edwards Transport's warehousewarming party said: "You've got to be ambitious to succeed in transport these days. She seems to have ambition and determination by the truckload, and she is very professional. Good luck to her."
Several others, not to mention a prospective client or two, echoed similar opinions about Pauline Edwards, the company's managing director. They were among around TOO customers and guests from local businesses who were attending the official opening of the company's new depot on the Queniborough industrial estate, near Leicester.
This is a seven-vehicle operation, run by Pauline with the assistance of her daughter, Vanessa Perry. It is the third home so far for a business set up less than eight years ago. It was in 1992 that she decided "to go for it". She says: "I put an advertisement in the Leicester Mercury for owner-drivers. I didn't want to own vehicles. I knew there were drivers out there on the road who didn't have the time to make their own sales calls—who hadn't had the time to develop into the sales person I had become. I was going to be that person for them: I was going to fill that gap."
Success
PET has tilled that gap successfully so far, but the biggest challenge ahead is to fill the new warehouse.
The new site is somewhat different 0
n from the last. "We had an office and vehicle parking space in the middle of Leicester. I think when we said we were going to move to a new home with a storage area, people assumed we would have about 45omz. We might have started off thinking that way, but in five years we would have just had to think about moving again."
The new site is three times the size of that popular estimate, at 1,350m2. There is another 750m2 of raised flooring inside. But apart from the freshly cleaned vehicles at one end, an occasional pallet and one very large space. filling crate, there were more people than consignments as the official opening party began. That's when you realise what those early comments mean.
Confidence
Edwards is unfazed, and is supremely confident about the future: "We have been working for customers who needed more warehouse space when we couldn't provide it. Now we can. We have other customers who, come Christmas, will be looking for floor space just to get their products out of the way. If we have any space left by then we will be able to help them out. It will help us get more into the distribution side of things."
She became involved in the transport business almost by accident. "In 1982 I had an employment agency in Melton Mowbray, but at the same time I handled an answering service for a one-man-and-a-van operation. I loved doing that—I absolutely loved it! I ran the truck side as if it was my own business. By the time I stopped doing it he had four vehicles on the road, with one of them on a contract. I was sad when I stopped," she says.
The end came when she sold the agency with a view to spending more time with a young family; but that didn't last long.
"I had decided to retire gracefully, but a week later I was going out of my mind with nothing to do. A friend saw an advert in the local paper for a clerk with TNT and I thought, 'transport'. So I applied, and from there I moved up to office supervisor, then on to customer services supervisor in a really short time. It was as if TNT was mine. If I could save fr.5o or 2.so on a claim, it was as important to me as the more mammoth claims I had to deal with," she says.
But working for someone else's transport business was not enough. With the desire to lead her own business rekindled, the new venture had to involve vehicles. PET was born.
"We started with small packages, but it was at the end of a recession and we had to provide something different. Companies could get their own warehousemen to deliver small pack ages, but they couldn't get trucks to do the bigger jobs. We had small vehicles working for us but there were—still are—hauliers out there who were driving their trucks all day and who didn't have the time to make the sales calls. They were the sort of people who answered the advert, and that's how we moved into subcontracting," Edwards recalls.
Growth
Now the firm has settled into the new depot, she expects the subcontracting side of the business to grow. At the moment PET uses about 40 operators around the country. They usually run directly into PET client premises. The hope is that more and more of them will run into the new warehouse to handle the new distribution contracts.
The customer list includes high-profile names such as Edwards' first employer in the transport business, TNT, as well as Unipart. Typical loads include car parts delivered in roll cages to garages, building materials for merchants and sites, hanging garments on rails for the high street stores and food distribution for local manufacturers.
These activities contribute to an annual turnover in the region of L75 o,000, but the move to the new depot is being accompanied by a regional marketing campaign which aims to increase turnover to pay for the additional overheads.
However, there is no immediate temptation to increase the size of the owned fleet to try to spread those overheads a little more widely. "I think that would be far too dangerous at this stage," says Edwards. "I can't see me ever getting away from the fact that the majority of our drivers will be ownerdrivers. I would probably like another 17-tonner and another 7.5-tonner for local delivery work, but there are no plans yet in that direction. I've got confidence in the drivers we've got and the
quality of the owner-drivers we can get," says Edwards.
According to general manager Richard Smart, the targets for new business include every company in the region, from A to Z.
"It's taken a lot of effort so far, but it has already brought in several leads that we have managed to convert, although we are only up to the Bs at the moment," he says.
Upsizing
Vehicle operations and maintenance are the responsibility of Vanessa Perry, who is also a director of PET. It was she who convinced her mother that the company needed to be in larger vehicles, and she lobbied successfully for the right to obtain her HGV licence. She drove the company's first tractor unit daily until greater responsibilities beckoned from the office chair.
Perry says that experience was important for several reasons, not least that she is able to deal with drivers and understand the importance of a good maintenance regime and the need to keep looking for new and more lucrative business opportunities. She is as confident as her managing director about the company's ability to generate enough business to fill the new warehouse.
The optimism at PET is fired by the certain knowledge that the business has come this far by focusing on the collection and delivery end of the market, while storage and distribution opportunities have had to be turned down. That will not be the case in the future.