Edinburgh-based Freight Express, despite its name, is not an express
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carrier. Instead, it specialises in carrying goods of a difficult or delicate nature, attracting customers that want an awkward problem solved.
Next time you stop at a roadside garage and buy a chicken tikka sandwich from one of those smart refrigeration units that have popped up everywhere in the past few years, spare a
thought for Freight Express. This Edinburgh-based outfit may well have delivered and installed the wardrobe-size unit responsible for keeping salmonella at boy from your intended lunch. Mind you, it wasn't like that in the beginning. When the firm was founded in 1979, the name Freight Express was coined because partners Keith Grant and David Seaton fancied their chances as an express firm, competing with the parcel boys on light freight and next-day services. In the event, and despite the racy name, the pair were offered work that was not express but required great care in delivery, such as computers and antiques. Food refrigeration units came later but also fall into this category, being surprising ly fragile "We seldom express anything," says Grant, "But we've not been tempted to change the name because we have become very well established in Edinburgh " Nearly a third of its customers are occasional users so a name change could damage its loyal customer base.
The service has evolved so that the company's core business has become "moving difficult, awkward and delicate goods without breaking them". To this end all the vehicles have been fitted with hydraulic tail-lifts "We offer a bit more than just a delivery service by taking the strain off everyone else. Our drivers are told that while they are working for us, they are always earning, so that if they get to a customer and it's an awk ward delivery where the fridge won't fit the door, they've just got to get on with it." Seaton nods in agreement: "The customer does not want to hear about the problem, Ile just wants us to get rid of it." And those drivers have to able to unpack and install on site, changing the hinge side of the cabinet door if necessary. After refrigeration units, the company's main business divides between working for chemical companies, including carrying some 1,000 litre
FACTFILE: FREIGHT EXPRESS
intermediate bulk carriers {IBCs) hozchem work, and for furniture and lighting companies. It is in the latter category that the occasional users are likely to suddenly ring up: "Someone wants to send a sofa to their son's house in Inverness or a lighting company needs to install lights in a castle," cites Grant of two recent jobs. Because of its geographical position, the company can also provide a useful transit service for southern-based hauliers with loads for the north of Scotland, grouping their few pallets with its own shipments.
Freight Express has 1,220m2 of storage— enough to offer this service and to store refrigeration units for its main customer, a Danish manufacturer, for whom it delivers as far south as Birmingham.
Storage is an aspect of the business the partners would like to expand, particularly transhipment into the Highlands. But unlike some less fortunate operators, the duo had the good sense to contract the business when the going got rough in the late 1980s. At that time they were running 12 vehicles and had benefited from that illusory boom period when businesses were constantly refurbishing and there were truckloads of new office furniture to deliver.
Pragmatic
Not so in the pragmatic nineties: "They are sticking with the same tatty old rubbish," says Seaton. But when the rocks of recession loomed, the pair wisely trimmed their sails and reduced the fleet: "We got to the point," says Seaton, "where we were at it seven days a week just keeping goods on trucks, keeping trucks on the road and working ourselves into a frenzy." Paring costs had an immediate effect: although turnover halved, profits remained the same. A lesson in economics worth learning and followed through to this day when, as Seaton says, the pair have established suprisingly good cash flow for a transport operation. Grant agrees: 'Operators look at cashflow as a monthly job when, in fact, it's a daily job." The most recent innovation to move the business forward has been to take on a young woman to sell their ser vices over the telephone, targeting likely customers in telesales-speak. An has it worked? 'The response," says Seaton laconically, "has been greater than bugger all." It has, he adds, provided an opportunity to send brochures out and a chance to price new kinds of jobs. Grant is more hopeful: 'We can find out what our market is." D by Patric Cunnane