'The bigger you are, the easier it becomes'
Page 16
Page 17
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
Advanced Supply Chain only became a logistics operation in 2001, but it wants to hit a turnover of £50m by 2015. CM spoke to MD Michael Danby to discover how he does it
Words: David Harris / Images: Gabriel Szabo, Guzelian
PURE HAULIERS do not have a monopoly on setting up haulage firms, and fashion logistics specialist Advanced Supply Chain is a case in point.
When MD Mike Danby set up the Yorkshire-based firm in 1997 it was not a haulier at all, but a garment processor: the haulage operation was sub-contracted. Danby does not describe himself as a transport professional. He says his background is in the clothing industry rather than trucks, but he did serve as a director at Clipper Logistics between 1992 and 1996.
He says: "I'd been in clothing for years, working for people like Burton and Damart, but I could see that clothing production in the UK was in decline, so I moved to be a production manager with a series of garment processing companies." It was from this that Danby progressed to setting up Advanced with partner Glyn Rogan. Originally the firm was a buy-out of Brentray Services, renamed Advanced Supply Chain after the purchase. Even at that stage, the firm's main expertise was garment processing rather than garment transport "We did everything but the physical transport," says Danby.
The inclusion of haulage came in 2001. he adds, because Advanced simply couldn't get the sort of haulage operation it wanted.
He adds: -Specifically, we couldn't get the service we needed in hanging garments, so we decided to start up ourselves. And very quickly the haulage part of the operation became a big part of the business.
So that was how a garment processing company became a fashion logistics firm, where the haulage operation expanded to take in a good deal more than just clothes transport.
It was so efficient during the recession that turnover has increased 20% for each of the past two years The company's target, says Danby, is £50m turnover by 2015. This year, he says, turno ver was £20m. Advanced Supply Chain is the trading name for Advanced Processing which, according to figures posted at Companies House, saw its turnover rise by 23% between 2007 and 2008, and was up 18% between 2008 to 2009 (from £11.5m to £13.6m).
The service that Advanced developed, says Danby, marked the firm out from competitors because it offered an end-to-operation. Typically. Advanced can handle clothes imported from the Far East, package them as required, and deliver them to the shops that sell them. Its customers are major fashion retailers, with Asda, BhS, Debenhams, Makro and Sainsbury's, among many others.
However, one of the key decisions in the past few years was to expand the firm's business beyond clothing to general haulage in 2007 This was bucking the trend at a time when many general hauliers were choosing to specialise, hut by adopting this strategy Advanced was able to prosper.
Danby explains: "We knew the business so well that we knew what our customers required, but the recession also brought some other advantages, such as the fact that the cost of leasing trailers was at a historically low level."
It was an advantage for Advanced that many of the customers for which it started by carrying clothes also now use it for transporting non-clothing loads. Makro, for example, uses Advanced for its hanging garments and many other things too, and more than half of what Advanced carries for Makro is non-clothing.
A wide spread of business has ena bled Advanced, whose main operating centres are in Bradford and Halifax, to achieve its consistent and substantial growth. Like most hauliers, Danby admits that its profit margins are lower than other sectors might like ("put it this way, if we got 5% profit on turnover we'd be jumping," he says), but the vigour of the company's growth has more than compensated for the tight margins that so many hauliers endure.
"The bigger you are. the easier it becomes, and we are now both willing and able to take on all sorts of work.There is very little that we will turn down." •