O n Tuesday 2 February at 03:45hrs Bill Beadnell, boss of
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North East Leyland Daf, was woken by the telephone ringing in his ear. He certainly wasn't expecting any calls—he was on holiday in Florida.
"I thought who the hell's that calling me at this time in the morning."
The voice on the line belonged to Terry Waterfall, head of Sherwood Leyland Daf, calling from a meeting of the Daf European Dealer Association in Paris.
"I said 'do you know what time it is... it's quarter to four in the morning, I'm still in bed'. He said 'you'll get out of bed for thisDaf has just called in the receivers'."
By 18:30hrs Beadnell was bound for the UK. By the time his plane had touched down on Wednesday, Leyland Daf was hours away from calling in the administrative receivers.
For Beadnell it was the start of a long haul to secure the long-term future of his company: "The first thing I did was make sure I exhausted every possibility."
Seven weeks and 40 plane trips later the likelihood of remaining a Leyland Daf dealer was fading fast. Along with the continuing uncertainty over the future of Leyland Daf, Beadnell was worried by Daf NV's predictions of much smaller heavy truck sales volumes. As one of Leyland Daf's biggest UK dealers—last year North East sold 680 units—he couldn't see his volumes being maintained post receivership.
"You run a business of a given sizc and you need revenue of given amounts. My responsibility was for 200 people. I had to examine what the future held and having exhausted that possibility we naturally turned our minds to an alternative."
OVERHEADS
North EaA has two sites: at Billingham and Blaydon—big dealerships with big overheads, as Beadnell explains: "The first option was to downsize. But how would you do that? We've always been a successful company. To downsize meant we'd sell Blaydon—but nobody's looking for a commercial vehicle dealer in this day and age. What else are you going to do? Sell some real estate?"
The close relationship between Beadnell and his staff meant that cutbacks had an effect far beyond the bottom line. "I've grown up with people here in 25 years. What would downsizing mean? Downsizing meant job losses! It wasn't in the culture of the company." Having rejected slimming down Beadnell was fast running out of options: "Having exhausted the possibility that there would be an early resolution to the Leyland Daf problem, rightly or wrongly we decided to consider the opportunities of another franchise."
It was an emotional wrench for Beadnell: "It's been the worst period of my life. From the day I became a Daf dealer in 1973 until the day I decided that I had to do something about it, I never failed to make a loyal input to that company.! have great memories of it and I'm totally pissed off with the whole situation."
Finding another franchise wasn't a problem—North East's reputation would have attracted plenty of other suitors. The trick was to find the right one.
"We're a heavy truck dealer here and that's what we specialise in," says Beadnell. "We're well known as a quality heavy truck dealer having been the first motor dealer of any description to get BS5750. I wanted to do the same thing I'd done for years."
Enter Roger Phillips, Iveco Ford's director of commercial strategy and sales. Hired by IFT at the start of 1992 to help whip the Iveco Ford heavy truck dealer network into shape, Phillips was in a unique position to judge the strengths of the Leyland Daf dealer network, having been the top man at Leyland Daf Sales and Marketing at Thame until his sudden departure in October 1991.
A long-standing friend of Beadnell, Phillips maintained a steady dialogue with the Billingham-based dealer during the early days of the receivership. Slowly but surely that dialogue began to turn into an offer.
However, says Beadnell, what really tipped the balance was a five-hour meeting in March with Iveco Ford Truck's boss Alan Fox: "Every question I asked Alan about what the intention of IFT was fitted our pattern. He means to have a heavy truck dealer network."
So on 19 April Beadnell signed the contract to switch officially to 1E7, turning North Fast Leyland Daf into North East Truck and Van.
Switching franchises meant convincing Beadnell's own staff as well as customers. For the former it involved a concentrated programme of IFT indoctrination. "We were dyed-in-the-wool Leyland Daf," says Beadnell. "I had to come back here and sell the idea as best as I could to our people. We took the staff down to Langley and Roger gave a presentation to our managers. We also looked at systems and people became very comfortable."
The biggest surprise came when North East's engineering staff (who have built a solid reputation for specialist chassis conversion work) were shown the latest Iveco EuroTech. "We were given access to it without inhibition, to pull it to bits, to do everything. If you walk around anywhere here and ask anybody how surprised they were with this product as engineers of calibre, they were astounded," says Beadnell.
He admits to an impatience about EuroTech: "I can't wait to get to grips with it. I've absolutely no doubts whatsoever about the EuroTech range and if the rest is anything like it then we'll have no problems with residuals. This vehicle and others to follow will create its own residuals."
But what of North East's customers? How will they take to being told that after years of buying Leyland Dafs they now ought to buy Iveco Ford?
PHILOSOPHY
Beadnell's response is characteristic of North East's philosophy: "If you draw up a list of what operators are looking for I'd argue that product is perhaps fourth on the list, The first is the dealer. What's his culture? What's his real support of you Mr Customer?
"Second, what are my fellow dealers like? Because I can't be an island. I need fellow dealers to be of a minimum quality Third,! need a manufacturer to be a partner with the dealers and be proactive and reactive. Then I need a satisfactory product."
But Beadnell will not be rushing to his old customers with new EuroTech brochures.
"When the trouble first hit, our concern was to ensure that every one of our customers could get parts anywhere in the UK. When we've had gatherings of customers I've promised them that their Leyland Daf product will be supported with every resource that this company has, And if in the passing of time you believe in this dealership then we'll offer you a product and service equivalent to what we've already done over the years. I don't see anything wrong with that message."
Now Leyland Daf is out of receivership has Beadnell had any second thoughts?
"A lot of people said 'you left too early, you were a cornerstone' (Beadnell was twice chairman of the Leyland Daf dealer association) but I've no regrets. We're where we should be and if we do a good job we'll get our rewards."
E by Brian Weatherley