Service First
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Gordon Leslie [Distribution) is a successful business that believes that first-class service is more important than price
Words: Roger Brown/Images: Andy Forman
It is a cold Glasgow morning when CM visits the impressive new premises of Gordon Leslie (Distribution). The company signage is due to arrive any day now, ready to be fixed to the front of the building on the four-acre site on Edison Street, Hillington Park.
Workmen are putting the finishing touches to the interior but, apart from this, the site is virtually finished.
Inside the pristine offices, staff are busy working at their desks. Next door, as part of the warehousing and storage operation, fork-lift trucks are busy ferrying pallets. ready to be placed on to trailers. There is a buzz about the place and CM senses that this is a company on an upward trajectory.
Gordon Leslie (Distribution) is part of the newly formed Gordon Leslie Group, which incorporates warehousing and freight-forwarding divisions.
MD Craig Leslie says he is delighted with the firm's new 70,000ft2facility. which is on the site of the former ROES Royce aircraft engines plant and next to its existing 110.000fe warehouse in Penilee Road.
"We have spent more than .000,000 on resurfacing the yard and refurbishing the offices and even discovered a Second World War bomb shelter," he says.
"In recent years, the Edison Street site was used as a building college and it was a bit of an effort to clear some of the old buildings away."
Specialised storage
Hillington Park is situated on the M8 corridor, two miles from Glasgow airport and five miles from the city centre.
Leslie tells CM the firm's Penilee Road site, which it moved to in 2007 from a previous centre in Linwood it had occupied for 15 years, had expanded to a point where storage and warehousing had taken over.
He adds: "We will hold onto it, the facility will remain on our licence and it will continue to be an important warehousing and storage centre. However, the new site will be used to focus on clients that require specialised storage combined with transport and office space, if required. It provides us with a better, more driver-friendly facility and the layout is far better."
Leslie says the group prefers to buy the freehold on its sites as this gives maximum flexibility as well as a potentially valuable asset in the long term.
"With the business changing and expanding so rapidly, it is important that we are able to develop our warehouse facilities at the pace customers require," he says.
"We were in a good position in 2007, just before the credit crunch, to sell the Linwood site for a fantastic figure. Timing was kind to us, as the drop in property values since then has enabled us to buy the new site for a reduced figure compared with pre-credit crunch values.
"Comfortingly, however, values now seem to be rising."
Strong relationship
Gordon Leslie Ltd was formed in 1972 by Craig's father, Gordon, and the company subsequently developed a strong relationship with Cavewood, a subsidiary of French logistics firm Geodis.
In 1996, Geodis bought a stake in Gordon Leslie and the remaining equity in 2000. However, as management at Geodis changed, so did its focus, with an increasing concentration on European rather than domestic distribution.
Leslie was unhappy at the change of direction and, in September 2004. launched his current business — Gordon Leslie (Distribution), taking the company hack into family ownership.
To Leslie's delight, many staff and clients remained loyal to him following the change. One such long-serving
stalwart is transport manager Brian Mifsud, Mir) gives CM a guided tour of the new facility. "We are well positioned in lillington Park as there are lots of businesses that need transport services, either for large pallet quantities or single cases." he says.
"It is important to us that we handle all pallets carefully, and we make sure we wrap them correctly in bubble wrap to protect them, Some customers have been quoted cheaper prices by competitors but were disappointed with the service offered. They suffered damaged goods and came back to us. We run the operation on service, rather than on. price."
The move to the Pen i lee Road site also helped cater for the increasing needs of long-terrn customers London City Bond and Cert Octavian each suppliers of bonded warehouse facilities to the wine trade. Goods are stored under bond and transported from London and the Midlands to the Glasgow warehouse. The Gordon Leslie fleet then delivers the wine to hotels, restaurants and trade centres throughout Scotland.
Mifsud says Gordon Leslie's 24-hour operation distributes Scottish and English-produced wine and spirits for supermarket distribution centres and city-centre venues We deliver thousands of cases of wine each year to individuals, hotels, restaurants and auction houses and understand the demands of this market," he says.
"We have an excellent hunch of friendly and experienced drivers who understand the high levels of
personal and flexible service that is expected when delivering," Mifsud says.
The firm runs a combination of Volvo FH440 6x2 artics and Volvo FL 18-tonners. Most repair and maintenance work is carried out by the local Volvo dealership, but one of the drivers with a mechanical background can carry out minor repairs when necessary.
Mifsud says the firm's vehicle-replacement programme ensures that all its vehicles are equipped with the most fuel-efficient engines, "All of our vehicles are fitted with the latest vehicle-tracking technology, pin-pointing them to within a few metres anywhere in the UK," he says.
"Trailer tracking allows dropped trailers to be monitored independently from those attached to tractor units. Driver training is designed to maximise fuel consumption and tyre wear and we have enginemanagement technology through Volvo's Dynalleet system in all our vehicles,
"We have computerised vehicle scheduling to reduce delivery mileage, as well as air management kits on vehicles and trailers."
In the first three years after the split with Geodis, and the return to Leslie family ownership, the firm expanded quickly with annual sales rising from £2.5m to I:5.5m.
However, the company has not escaped the credit crunch. In its accounts for the year to September 2009. Gordon Leslie Distribution reported that turnover had dipped to £4.8m, despite an improved pre-tax profit of .031.464.11e year to September 2010 saw sales rise above ifirn with a further £3m of sales generated by the freight and warehousing divisions.
Gordon Leslie sales director Kenny Scott is the man employed to win new business for the company. and help increase turnover and profit.
Growth areas
Freight forwarding is becoming an increasingly important growth area for the firm since it took on much of the Scottish business of freight forwarder Anglo Overseas, which went into administration in January 2009.
The company launched its freight forwarding arm Gordon Leslie (Freight) in March last year and now specialises in importing and exporting wines and spirits, as well as other cargos, by sea, air and international road freight.
Scott says: "Customs paperwork is completed to the highest standard and forms arc quickly returned to the shippers. We are keen to get the message across that we also offer warehousing and freight forwarding.
"Wine and spirits distribution remains a mainstay of the business, however, we want to widen our client base and explore other areas of growth. We recently won a contract with industrial lighting company Hubble and we are keen to pick up more business in this area."
The move to the Edison Street site coincides with Gordon Leslie winning a new contract with Midlothian based Dobbies Garden Centres. Dobbies operates 26 UK garden centres and plans to expand rapidly over the next few years and increase its presence in England.
Leslie says: "We are delighted with the move to the new site and, with the Dobbies business coming at the same time, it is an exciting period for the company."
In its previous incarnation as Gordon Leslie Ltd, the haulier joined Palletline in 1996 but left in 1998 following its takeover by Geodis, which owns the Fortec network.
Post-Cieodis, it joined Palletforce, covering a large part of Ayrshire. However, because of the size of the area, this meant collections or deliveries could often be up to 40 miles away from the firm's Glasgow base.
Delivery areas
Last year, when Palletline's key Glasgow postcodes — one of the most densely concentrated delivery areas in the UK, and virtually the same area as before — became available, Leslie jumped at the opportunity.
The company says being in the new area, the majority of which is within 10 miles of its headquarters, will save it about £100,000 a year through reduced mileage.
Leslie says: "As members of another pallet network, we were covering a much wider distribution area, which was less efficient from an operational point of view.
"We are already seeing close to double the volume coming out of Palletline, and because we now cover a tighter delivery area, we are able to manage this expanded business using the same number of vehicles."
The decision to move to Palletline was also prompted by important commercial considerations. "Palletline is now the leading pallet network in terms of its IT offering. This is important for us strategically, with increasing numbers of customers putting us under pressure to provide legally-compliant track and trace and digital signature capture," says Leslie. •