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THE RIGHT FINGERS IN THE RIGHT PIES
Page 46
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Cartwright Group has battled its way through the recession and remained relatively intact. Although the total annual market for trailers is down a third towards approximately 8,000 units, director Steven Cartwright says the group has still managed to improve its market share. Last year, its volume remained consistent, with turnover of £62m last year, with the parts operation contributing £1.2m, and rental £10m.
Even though the UK's GDP tell 8% through 2008 into 2009. according to the government's Office for National Statistics, there have been two growth areas in the UK: food andhome delivery, which are two areas Cartwright has experience of providing equipment for.
"On the chassis side, we were non-stop last year. The type of customer we have buys on a yearly basis parcel businesses such as TNT, FedEx, and Royal Mail. These companies can't stop the replacement cycle, because they have got to provide the service to their customers." Cartwright argues, "We've been dealing with TNT for 30 years and Royal Mail for 17 years. Added to that, we're all eating and drinking [more], and we're getting home deliveries.
"If you have got customers in these sectors, it's a help."
For the Cartwright Group, which is celebrating 50 years of manufacturing at its Altrincham site, the challenge remains its ability to fill its workforce's time productively. Cartwright explains: "We have a certain number of hours to sell here, whether Ws refurbishment, repair, demount, rigid, trailer, fridge, or double-deck. Last year, we were doing a lot of refurbishment; we did a job for Argos repairing its trailers, it's like the Forth Bridge and it's good work."
While manufacturing remains at the core of the Cartwright business, the introduction of finance to sell the product, and rental, provides Cartwright's sales team with enough scope to bring in work.
"Dreams [the bed manufacturer and retailer] is a classic example of having a rental customer which then produced a new order. It's a lot easier to get a customer at £60 to £70-a-week for rent than it is to sell a product [requiring funding]," he says.
Cartwright Group is also focusing on parts and is linking up with maintenance providers. "If you go back five years, we wouldn't have discs and chambers and calipers. Now we supply the bits you need for servicing and testing, as well as trailer parts.
"We can buy the parts cheaper from the factory to supply. In some circumstances, they are selling our parts to their other clients rather than just the parts fitted to our trailers. We are becoming a parts and maintenance agent," he says.