Crosshire

Protection Racket

Executive Hire News, August 2008                                          Go to main Crosshire page

I always allow my staff to attend SED and over the past few weeks various snippets of wisdom gained on their visit have been forthcoming. Overall, the effort of running our business for a couple of days with fewer people has proved worthwhile. Our operational staff should have the opportunity to comment on what our future inventory might contain, and interact with suppliers and peers. And I will certainly be repeating the exercise in the New Year at the Executive Hire Show in February.

At one of our debriefings, I learnt that my contingent had met up with staff from a couple of local competitors, one a branch of a national group, the other a regional independent with several local depots. My staff were intrigued that our opposition seemed to waste an awful lot of time using their computer systems to find out what other depots in their own organisation were up to!

It was apparently a routine each morning to see how well (or otherwise) the other branches had done the day before. Much effort was also expended on 'protecting' equipment in stock at their own premises from being requisitioned by another depot. The logic was that any 'good kit' would leave their yard, but because another depot might play the system better than they did, they would end up with older or less reliable items when they were short of stock!

Samantha commented that, surely, their employers had put safeguards to protect the computer system from such gerrymandering. The answer was "Yes," but as fast as an edict or electronic safeguard appeared, much ingenuity was applied to circumvent it. Big Fred, who is not particularly fond of using our own system even for very basic operations, found this whole conversation very entertaining. His observation that, on an average morning, we had probably delivered several machines to site before our competitors had finished fighting amongst themselves, was very astute.

Furthermore, our frontline driver Rocket Raymond declared that he regularly met competitors' drivers in a large lay-by when he was obliged to spend his tacho rest break at the hot dog and salmonella van parked there. He confirmed how chatting to them revealed they spend an incredible number of journeys moving metal from depot to depot, rather than delivering to customers. I don't need to bang on about fuel or staff costs, as you all know where they are heading. If this scenario is a snapshot of life at depot level within some
multi-depot hire companies, then there must be a better way of employing resources.

The very old maxim that "The bigger the outfit, the bigger the waste" comes to mind but, of course, it can be offset by observing how much bigger the saving is once it is tackled effectively by keen management. On the
plus side my staff were impressed by some ideas they picked up in their conversations and I hope that their friends did likewise.

Whilst we cannot afford to waste our time, neither can we ignore the need to support each other if we are to prosper through the tougher times that inept politicians and an irresponsible press have led us into. Another maxim is "It's good to talk", and perhaps it needs times like the present to bring out the best in us.

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