"Core business" is a buzzword for businessmen who prefer to
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leave specialists to handle ancillary jobs...such as transport. DTS Logistics has flourished by doing the exact oppos_ijts services include just about everythinc but making and selling the goods it handles.
more businessmen are talking about "getting back to core business". In the se of hauliers, that means divesting urself of managing workshops, owning ucks and even employing your own rivers. The idea is that this leaves you free concentrate on the business of moving 'ads from Point A to Point B.
As always, some people buck the trend. ichael Daly set up Daly Transport Services 1979, soon after he graduated. Now he's anaging director of a 100-vehicle operan specialising in transport and distribution r the garment industry. And the rimsdown, Enfield-based company, now ading as DTS Logistics, has flourished by tending the services it offers. "I'm the first to admit that today we mploy more people with expertise outside f the discipline of transport than we do aulage specialists," says Daly. "Road transrt was originally our core business but ay I employ people who wear white ats and work in an air-conditioned labratory who do not know the difference etween a semi-trailer and a drawbar. lthough transport remains a central part f our operation we are now a pre retail rvice provider to the clothing industry."
arth inversion implement
t first hearing, that description might ack of calling a spade a manually operatearth inversion implement, but "pre-retail rvice provider" is an accurate summary of TS's activities. Its brochure is presented in 2 sections which cover every part of the lathing business from past-production to re-retail. "If we diversified any further," aly remarks, "we'd be making them and Iling them. Anything to do with clothing hich falls between those Iwo points is mething which we'd take a look at." Daly is fully aware that his policy of diverification is out of step with much current inking in road transport, but he points to e enormous change which the retail indushas undergone over the past decade: en years ago 80% of our business was upplier-led," he explains. "Nowadays 85% f it is retailer-driven. We are now firmly cusecl on the big multiple retailers, and ese have demands which we have had to espond to." The company's depots—at Hornsey, rimsdown, Milton Keynes, Leeds and Idham—all work seven days a week, and he growth in added-value services offered y the retail sector has led DTS Logistics to lbw suit with a new range of services of its wn. "We have to look at the whole rocess," says Daly. "Retailers have identiied a market sector which they describe as ash-rich and time-poor. They want to shop om home; purely as a means of keeping em from having to go shopping in what ee time they have. "We have a number of EDI links to the big ail order houses," he adds. "When somene orders a garment, the order gets transited to us. We pick it, pack it and then ither despatch it through an independent
order house's courier companies. Further away from transport, we also offer a range of services such as metal detection in garments. Now that clothing is sourced from further afield, it's more difficult to keep on eye on individual garments. You can imagine the outcry if a child's sweater was found to contain a broken needle."
This all takes considerable investment. Daly has followed a haulage industry trend by contracting out much of his vehicle maintenance, which has freed funds.
"Our fleet is made up primarily of Mercedes-Benz and Volvo trucks," he says. To carry out the proper maintenance on these vehicles in house we'd need to go out and spend £250,000 on a diagnostics machine. That's not going to add to our revenue or our service ley for example, a new pressing mac me." company does buy all of its vehicles outri however, and writes them down over a or six year period. Reacting to customer demand ma good commercial sense, but if you can an ipate changes within the industry before t happen, your position will be even stron This is a cornerstone of DTS's policy.
"We travel, and we try to second-gu where the new clothing production mar will develop," says Daly. "In the mid-'8 there was a lot of work out of Gr Cyprus and Malta. That's now chang Eastern Europe and North Africa are
rently in vogue. We had to familiarise ourselves with hese markets almost before the retailers had started to source their production there."
DTS is currently looking at Egypt as a source for UK clothing retailers, and maintains a base in Tangier, Morocco to serve its North African business. It has also set up a joint-venture air freight company, Plane Sailing, to serve customers which outsource production in central Asia and the Far East. The latest development is a warehouse on the Dutch-German border. This was also in response to customer demand, but in this case the customer is American. "The big American multiples tend to try the United Kingdom First, for reasons of language and culture," says Daly. "This customer is pleased with what we've done, and wants us to replicate it in Europe." DTS maintains informal links with a number of continental hauliers, which allows it to make small deliveries throughout the EU. "We have competitors in 12 activities listed in our brochure," Daly comments. "There are hauliers which do more business in Morocco, and laboratories which analyse more cloth. I do not think, though, that there is any company about which offers as broad a range of services as we do. "I think we're struggling in the right direction. We've made a profit every year we've been in business, and there are not many companies which can make that claim. We have a long-serving, stable workforce, each of whom understands and acts in accordance with our mission statement.
"We are not a model for the rest of the haulage industry," Daly concludes, "We're not hauliers in the strict sense of the word. What we do is serve our customers in the way in which they want to be served. In today's market, that's what any supplier must do." by Oliver Dixon
mc ei mils DTS
LOGISTICS
' Brimsdovm, Enfield. FOUNDED: 1979. CONTACT Michael Daly, managing director. FLEET 100 vehicles, mainly Mercedes-Benz and Volvo. SPECIALITY CONTRACI Pre-retail services for the clothing industry.