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Bouncing back!
Page 22
Page 23
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Why is legendary trailer maker Crane Fruehauf, founded in 1865, only now getting over the mistakes
of the past decade? Brian Weatheriey reports.
Listening to Crane Fruehaufs sales and marketing director Dave Tallent reminds us of Geoffrey Howe's famous resignation speech. Howe lambasted the interfering nature of Margaret Thatcher's premiership as "rather like sending your opening batsmen to the crease only to find that their bats have been broken by the team captain".
Not a had analogy. During the nineties Crane Fruehauf took the biggest slice of the UK trailer market, not least in road tankers, until its owners at the time Littlejohn & Partners decided that it made more sense to transfer UK tank production to its French subsidiary within the General Trailers group. The result? "We went from selling 300 tanks to 20,"Tallent recalls ."The French made round tanks but not max-section tanks. And what did UK operators want? Max section." Overnight CF's masters snatched defeat from the jaws of victory and handed the business to the tikes of Heil. "I've only just stopped being angry,"Tallent admits.
Losing on points And it wasn't just on tankers that CF lost out, he points out: "Up to 1998 we were 10 points ahead of anybody else. In the following three years our market share halved. We had the strongest brand on the market place and we threw it out."
The 'wrong tanker' saga sums up the problems that have beset Crane Fruehauf ever since 1988. That's when its owners. the US Fruehauf Corporation, were so worried about corporate raiders that they sold off all European subsidiaries, including CF, to a European management buyout team. Backed by Credit Lyonaisse, the consortium operated under the name of SESR. Try as we might, Commercial Motor never quite understood what SESR was all about, beyond its rather vague pan-European strategy of using the individual strengths of each member company to build products for the rest of Europe. Great in theory, but it didn't work.
Fast forward to 1998 when, after further internal tinkering, SESR was acquired by US company Littlejohn, which decided to create four European product business units operating under the General Trailers banner. Manufacturing and development were to be combined across the GT group while sales operations remained separate.
According to Crane Fruehaufs recently appointed chief executive Alan Giles: -It was the classic American matrix management situation that works better in the States. But when you put it into Europe with different cultures and customers it falls down and can get incredibly political. It may have appeared right on paper -but it simply didn't work." Two years later the General Trailers group was sold on again, this time to APAX, another venture capital company. CF's odyssey finally ended in 2002 when General Trailers UK was acquired by its current parent the Rosewood Partnership. And if you're tired of reading about this managerial version of musical chairs, just think how the workforce at CF feels.
Finally, under Rosewood and Giles, CF has gained some much-needed stability. For a start the legendary name has been resurrected, and it has a clear mission. Giles doesn't mince his words: "To be a leading supplier of dry freight and bulk semi-trailers aimed at the UKmarket.And we're looking at engineering strengths;the traditional strengths of CF.The thing we're adding to that is to be customer friendly."
That rather suggests CF wasn't particularly customer friendly in the past, and Giles readily admits: "Well we haven't been as customer friendly as we've needed to be." Fortunately there's still loyalty for CF in the marketplace."The good will is still there as much as ever, both externally and internally, for Crane Fruehauf to succeed," says Giles. "I talked to people in the industry and the feedback was that Fruehauf was a very strong brand that had gone wrong — and that it was trying to get back."The brand clearly means a lot to Tallent:"We're delighted to call it Crane Fruehauf. That's exactly what it is... we never called it SESR."
Giles has a soft spot for engineers: "A lot of companies I was in were engineering based and I'm interested in getting it as a key function." Some of CF's engineering function was transferred to France during the Littlejohn years;now Giles wants to put it back:"Every two weeks the whole of the executive team inspects a trailer for an hour and we talk over the issues and improvements." But you have to wonder if the average haulier is prepared to pay for 'good engineering' when one trailer looks (and performs) pretty much like another."Yes,"saysTallent unequivocally. Where CF was previously building 100150 units a month they're now making 200 and moving 1o250. However. Giles insists that:"We can't be busy fools."
Turning the corner
In 2002 CF made an operating loss of around £4m. Today, thanks to that refocus on core engineering (and to a substantial `undisclosed' investment from Rosewood in the autumn of 2002) Giles reports that CF is beginning to turn the corner.
That's more than can be said for GT's French operation, which was recently granted six months' court protection in bankruptcy. "As we moved into the fourth quart' 20031 we were profitable in terms of mar turing two out of the three months," says "That's a special achievement. We're tu the company around after a period of miso tion. There's a huge amount of loyalty i workforce; we've got very good manager were taken down the wrong route.We'ret to put together the plan and develop the pany— and it's working step-by-step."
The days when Crane Fruehauf was ur lenged market leader have long gone;jusi at SDC and Montracon. And Giles does: being top of the heap as his prime goal want to be profitable and a good compz that takes us to number one then fine."] ever, the last word rests with Tallent: "114 are finally lifting their heads up in this corn The Crane Fruehauf of the '90s is back. I four years crying... now I'm smiling." •