Connect decentralises
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• Troubled parcels firm Connect UK is scrapping its Heathrow HQ and moving to the Midlands in a bid to decentralise and save money. New boss David Featherstone, who has also sacked his marketing and PR departments, hopes the move will quadruple business to 100,000 parcels per week by the end of the year.
Featherstone became managing director when Eagle Trust bought the carrier for only £100,000 in March — to become the third owner in six months — with orders to revamp it and make it more regional. Connect's new office will be at Westwood Business Park, Coventry, but it plans new local depots in Bristol, Peterborough and the South.
Connect claims to have had its best week last week with over 31,000 parcels carried, and Featherstone says the tide is turning "Our Heathrow operation is far too expensive and it seems anomalous that a major parcels carrier should have its HQ anywhere but the centre of the country."
A planned 21 million TV advertising campaign is still being shelved until the company's computer system is working properly and more re gional offices are opened. "I could raise 15,000 customers within a week with TV advertising, but I want the business built up step by step," says Featherstone.
He finds the fact that the computer is not operating "worrying but understandable". Eagle Trust, which inherited the system from previous owners, is examining whether it can cope with 10 times more work. Featherstone plans to set up a new marketing department, but he stresses that his priority is to build up a new structure for the business before promoting it.