1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192 
Maritime marches on
Page 24
Page 25
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
Felixstowe-based Maritime Transport has grown massively over the last five years — but, as managing director John Williams explains, some lessons have been learned the hard way. Louise Cole reports.
John Williams grew up in transport. His father runs Welsh operation TD Williams so a certain amount of expertise was his birthright. "My parents didn't want me to go into transport, hut I suppose it was inevitable," he explains. "I worked for my dad for 18 months. Then he turned to me one day and said,'You're sacked.—
Williams was 18 years old and trained as a vehicle engineer when his father decided that,if he was determined to walk in his shoes, Williams needed experience with a much larger firm. So the teenager packed a bag and took a perilous journey, scared not by independence or the rigours of commerce as much as by the move into England.
He took a job with Russell Davis, where he worked until 1995, then moved to Hutchison Ports which owned Maritime Haulage: "Hutchison wanted out; I spotted an opportunity and took it. It's very scary when you buy a firm; it was like going out on the road for the first time having passed my driving test with no one next to me telling me what to do."
But it seems Williams knew what to do instinctively. The firm had a turnover of f18m when he acquired it in September 2001 — it is now £65m. Profit has also grown impressively. In fact the size of the company appears to have more than tripled in every area, with owned vehicles going from 136 to 360; its pool of subcontractors growing from 97 to 250; and the number of weekly container movements climb
ing from 1,560 to 5,000. But to achieve this required an overhaul of existing systems.
When Williams acquired Maritime Haulage (renamed MaritimeTransport after the buyout) there were no working IT systems or backoffice functions. Insurance premiums were skyhigh, so he started to negotiate directly with insurers, hauled the company towards best practice with bonus schemes for drivers, and slashed the huge bill for agency drivers.
Williams was facing hidden challenges as well. Shortly after he bought the company he was summoned to a public inquiry, unaware that the firm had had a previous warning. "Going to PI was just horrible really," he recalls. "Awful. I made a case that I had only j ust bought the company and wanted to grow and we were granted six months. Luckily we managed to convince the TC in that time."
Sites throughout the UK Maritime vli-ansport has now spread all over the UK, with sites in Manchester, Leeds, Tilbury, Hams Hall, Liverpool, Bristol, Southampton, Thamesport and, of course, Felixstowe.
Williams remains optimistic, not only for his own company but for the industry as a whole. "The outlook isn't bleak," he says."I've a bee in my bonnet about negative reporting in the industry, fuel protests, the negative interpretation of the Working Time Directive. It's a deterrent for anyone looking in.
-Many hauliers exaggerate issues and fears
to condition customers to accept higher rates," he suggests. "Sounding so negative causes collateral damage to the industry."
Williams does not see the Working Time Directive as a problem,and he believes that even if it was, a proper attitude would defeat any obstacles: "We have days when trucks are stood in the yard, but I'm happier seeing them there than being recovered from the motorway."
He feels that the issues surrounding digital tachographs were equally hyped: They will contribute information that will be useful and save on charts. You can't fight [change... you have to embrace it."
Maritime has taken stringent steps to ensure the safety of its workforce. Following a spate of accidents, all involving agency drivers, Williams banned them from the firm. "The accident rate has dropped massively," he reports. "Agencydriver accidents are the most emotive because they are out of your control — we could take no action.Trying to withhold money didn't work." The firm has taken on additional drivers, and manages their holidays rigorously to ensure that there are always sufficient staffers to handle the work.
Maritime Haulage used to lease all its vehicles when Williams took it over, but he and business development director Andrew McNab saw two distinct advantages in buying more of them outright. The first is that owning half of its fleet gives Maritime a 'pipeline' of used vehicles to sell back into the market.
"It's a tidy fleet," says MeNab."We buy new. Vehicles are well maintained and we have an entire service history for every one. Gradually we've built a good reputation with
secondhandtrucks.co.uk, which is our sell-on business."
The other major coup for the company is that its subcontractors' scheme is attracting a large number of new drivers.Anyone qualified who wants to buy a truck from Maritime can also set up as a contractor for the company, paving the way for lots of would-be ownerdrivers.It worried us that too few people were coming into the business," says McNab. But now we have lots of interest."
But no matter how efficient Maritime Transport is,some things are out of Williams' control. For example, he believes increasing levels of congestion in and around UK ports demand action: "We're getting investment in UK ports, in Felixstowe, Harwich and Shellhaven, and now it's down to shareholders to implement it.
"The shipping lines want all ships into the same port to ensure economies of scale, but the ports are so constrained now. We need to re-engineer existing port land and dredge the channel to make it deeper. Compensatory land elsewhere can maintain a balance for wildlife."
Green light for Shellhaven
Shellhaven has been given the go-ahead for development as a container port. "It will regenerate the area but it needs road and rail links," says Williams. He is determinedly multimodal:"Rail-freight companies are there to do the deals and we use them a lot, as do more and more container operators. Some 25% of containers into ports on main trading lines should be coming by rail."
Williams has a strong sense of self: of where he came from and where he should be. He says he doesn't discuss his children's futures as that's for them to decide. But at 47 he is one of the youngest and most vigorous bosses in road transport,and he has no desire to be elsewhere: "I enjoy making a success of the business, of fulfilling my potential and that of the people who work for me.This is all I've known and I'm one of the few people my age who is completely obsessed [with this business]."
He's come a long way commercially from the little Welsh village where he grew up. But, as he makes a moving tribute to his parents and all they taught him, you realise he's not far from his roots at all. •