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NATIONAL AMBITION
Page 62
Page 63
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Independent CV repairers can offer high-quality
repairs and maintenance. Andy Salter visits one
with its sights set on nationwide expansion.
To be honest, until I made a trip to the company's Rochdale premises a couple of weeks ago! did not have a clue who or what Commercial Contract Engineers was or did. Indeed, were it not for a persistent PR firm catching an editor at a weak moment, I'd probably still have no idea about Commercial Contract Engineers (CCE).
It turned out that CCE is one of the burgeoning band of independent commercial vehicle repairers that has invested heavily in new state-of-the-art premises and has a full service offer that match rival or surpass, many franchised dealers.
The company has a new site in Rochdale -£2.2m was invested in the three-acre development in 2000 -with a 3,350m2 workshop and parking for umpteen trucks. Fifty people are employed and the turnover is in the region of L3.5m per year. Clearly there must he interest from the truck manufacturers in having this go-ahead independent in their franchise but we get the impression managing director Phil Ewbank prefers things just the way they are, with the flexibility and autonomy that comes with being independent.
"When I started this business [in the late 1980s] I wanted it to be clearly focused and have a high reputation for quality" he tells u,s."We've now been going for over 20 years and I think our customers recognise the fact we understand the business and pride ourselves on quality."
Extending its reach While traditionally drawing its customer base from the North-West, CCE is extending its reach and now numbers many blue-chip companies in its portfolio, NFT,Aldi,Arla Foods, BTS and Tesco are all on the roll of honour and the drive is on to develop the company as a national organisation.
"We already have clients all over the country," says Ewbank,"hut our current strategy is to raise our awareness in areas where we are perhaps less well-known.We are currently a top-four player in our sector and my objective is to take us into the top three."
Accident repair is one of the key CCE offerings it accounts for approximately 60% of the company's turnover, the rest corning from service and maintenance. "When you look at this [independent CV repair] business it's very saturated," Ewbank continues. "You have to work very hard to differentiate yourself. Our big offering is accident repair and we've invested heavily in the latest stateof-the-art equipment to ensure we can hit the quality levels expected."
A tour of the workshops is testimony to this investment -all the latest kit is on site."The quality of the work is essential in this sector," Ewbank says. 'The correct repair enhances the whole-life value of the vehicle to the operator."
Ewbank has a passion for accident repair work and, as a result, becomes frustrated with the attitudes of some of the insurance companies when it comes to 'total losses' (write-offs) of vehicles in the event of an accident. Rather than being recovered for repair, Ewbank believes vehicles are being scrapped unnecessarily.
As you would expect, there's a simple calculation carried out by the insurance company when it comes to total loss: the cost of repair to bring the vehicle back to its market value is set against the value of the damaged vehicle as scrap. Embank believes the 40% salvage value widely used by the insurance firms is unrealistic.
Clearly there is an element of self-interest here, but that doesn't make the argument any less salient.-Often engineers appointed by the insurance companies to assess a damaged vehicle will be more familiar with passenger
car activity," says Ewbank."They'll come and view a truck, and because they do look badly damaged will put them down as a total loss when they could be repaired.We run a lot of courses for engineers from the insurance firms to outline just what is possible to repair on a commercial vehicle. We're trying to help them do their job better.
Different interests
"Don't get me wrong, there are some very competent engineers," he says."But the engineer will be interested in the loss to the insurance company and not to the customer, which is not always the same thing."
Vehicles that are a little more difficult to repair are those that are fire-damaged. Ewbank has seen a lot of these coming through the yard recently -six within two weeks earlier this year. He is aware that insurer Zurich is looking closely at the issues involved and is understandably reluctant to comment further on such a sensitive topic, but believes they are not isolated incidents. We look forward to finding out more from the investigation planned for a future issue.
Our visit to CCE illustrated that you don't have to be in a major franchise to offer a high-quality service for vehicle repair and maintenance. Judging by this and other meetings with repairers, the independent network appears fit and healthy.This is good news because vehicles reaching the end of two and three-year manufacturer service packages are increasingly coming into the independent sector for maintenance.
Provided the workshops are equipped to deal with the latest vehicle management technology -which CCE is-then the weather is set fair for the next few years, s