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THREE DEGREES
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Nottingham-based RH Group generates a
whopping £70m turnover by combining freight forwarding, international haulage and truck hire. Tim Maughan reports.
ihrW e are a freight forwarder with our own trucks," says Ian Baxter. deputy group MD of the RH Group. A freight forwarder that runs HGVs?This is a statement which definitely captures CM 's attention.
The gulf between these two transport arms has always been distinct: the former busies itself with paperwork and arranges the movement of goods while the latter has the more arduous task of physically delivering consignments.
Visitors to the group's website are presented with a myriad of facts and figures: annual turnover of £70m;40.000m2. of warehousing space; a fleet of 200 HGVs: and a network of 17 depots throughout the UK.The site also showcases its pan-European reach and global cargo network.
Family business
The RH Group is clearly a multi-faceted organisation. its roots can be traced back to 1849. MD is Ian Baxter: his brother Nigel is transport director and their fath er,Neville, is company chairman.
RH maintains major depots inWestThurrock, Liverpool, Birmingham.Staines and Bournemouth; we meet Ian and Nigel Baxter at the Nottingham HQ which has 45 loading bays. As we speak to them trucks hearing a variety of liveries are loading and unloading at these bays. and the prominence of foreign-registered trucks reflect the group's international dimension.
The freight forwarding arm is the driving force, and its operations are truly pan-European. RH arranges the carriage of goods to every Continental country and throughout the former Eastern Bloc states which are destined to join the EU in May.
This is the point where freight forwarding and road transport overlap.A UK-made consignment may be destined for, say, Cadiz. RH forwarding personnel will oversee the entire job.The fu-rn's trucks then haul the load to a British port (most of their loads pass through Immingham,Felixstowe. Harwich, or Liverpool).
Turn round again
Continental-registered HGVs pick up the loads as they come off the ferries for onward delivery; only rarely do RH trucks venture into mainland Europe.
This process works both ways, with foreignregistered HGVs hauling consignments to the UK. After consolidation at its depots RH trucks deliver goods to customers across Britain.
Freight forwarding works on a global scale. "We can arrange for a cabinet to be moved from Inverness to Lima,Thligel Baxter remarks.As with seaborne loads. RH trucks will carry out the first phase of the process, dropping off our precious cabinet at Heathrow. East Midlands, Bournemouth or Manchester airport.
A team of 40 freight forwarding managers (FAMs) is responsible for ensuring that goods reach their destinations.The firm's website says that each FAM is charged with looking after a particular customer's -portfolio".
Although global markets dictate much of the Baxters' business, issues closer to home especially those generated by the European Union have greater impact. Nigel says:"Personally I don't think that what we do is more difficult than general haulage. The biggest challenges to our business come from issues like the WorkingTime Directive."
This will certainly have a dramatic impact on the transport industry but the European partner-based nature of the RH Group will ameliorate its effects:The group's drivers don't tend to run on foreign soil,so a load going from Manchester to Rome is taken on by at least two trucks. Hence there are natural breaks which chop a long journey into chunks.
In 2002 the company launched GX Guaranteed Express. Claims of guaranteed on-time delivery commonly adorn parcel trucks in the UK, but swearing to deliver punctually on a Continental level is a different kettle of fish.
The website states that if a delivery is late the customer will not be charged.That might be routine for a local pizza delivery but given the different parties involved in a single trip it reflects an impressive level of confidence.
Ian Baxter says: "It is not common [in the wider industry] to give a money-back guarantee.When a customer gives us an express job it's because it is important to them. But sometimes, if a truck is late, the industry shrugs its shoulders and does not stand by its promise to offer a free delivery" RH Group trucks may well run like clockwork, but what if they work punctually. only for an operator on the continent to be late? Or say the French dockers go on strike again? No matter, says Ian; the group doesn't impose any conditions on its money-back offer:"It is unequivocal. If we give our commitment there are no excuses. It gets there on time or it is free."
Finnish trailers
RH's tractors rarely venture abroad,but its trailers certainly do. "0y RH Freight Ah," Ian says. Sorry? It appears that he's speaking in a foreign language... and he is.This is the name of the group's Finnish arm. Unaccompanied trailers are ferried over from Hull and Felixstowe to Finland for haulage to Helsinki or Tiirku.The group claims market leadership in this niche. with 6.000 trailers crossing the North Sea every year. RH owns 80% of the Finnish operation; the remainder is in the hands of Kaj Forsman. the Oy RH Freight Ab manager.
Mixed loads of British-made consumer goods are regularly transported to Helsinki and ellirku and then hauled by the firm's partners to Russia: St Petersburg is just 200km from Helsinki.
RH Rentals, the group's truckhire division, has 300 HGVs which are available for spot hire and long-term contract hire.The rental fleet is 100% Renault and lealer principal David Page says that :ventually the trucks are fully overhauled ind sold on.
RH's international dimension is a world iway from local, or even regional hire-and-eward road transport. So we wonder if nore operators should consider making the nove from local deliveries to international freight forwarding. Baxter pulls no punches:"Global freight forwarding is quite complex. If you come from a UK domestic operation I think that you would find it difficult to get a handle on this type of work." •