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Crosshire
Trust Your Own Revenue Figures, Rather Than the National Media
Executive Hire News, April 2008 Go to main Crosshire page
Is business good for you? Just after the Executive Hire Show, most hiremen seemed pretty optimistic about the year ahead. As you will know from last month's EHN, I have been on holiday and after only a few weeks away in another time zone, I have returned to find evidence of our industry possibly being affected by the media induced gloom that seems to be spreading through the English speaking world.
As soon as I was back at my desk, several well known equipment suppliers were lying in wait to announce that
products, which only a few weeks ago were on extended delivery, could now be supplied from stock. Prices were also 'more negotiable'. It didn't take long to establish that the reason was the cancellation or suspension of large orders by prominent, market leading hirers. This tactic is not new, and fair play to those with the purchasing power to pull it off. However, these events throw additional opportunities to the rest of us and are not in themselves a reason to induce panic.
At our staff debriefing, Big Fred listed several names who had called us looking for employment. Each one was either currently working for competitors, or had recently been made surplus to requirements. So there is evidence of caution creeping into the marketplace. As ever, a few phone calls did not produce any meaningful data, with some competitors declaring they were busy and others hedging their comments. Our driver Rocket Raymond always chats to his counterparts at our competitors whenever he sees them, and he said some were busier than others, but there were lots more positive comments than negative ones.
The only unwelcome trend that does seem to be reflecting the national caution regarding retail is that business with consumers is down. There is evidence to suggest that those hirers with high exposure to the public/retail side of our industry are quieter than those concentrating on business to business transactions. After the initial growing pains of the early 1970s, equipment hire became a truly national industry
around 30 years ago. There have since been several blips or recessions in the global and national economies. One common factor of them all has been the resilience of our industry and the fact that many opportunities occur directly due to changed economic conditions.
We may be fortunate in that, while hire to the public has grown in the UK, it is still nowhere near the level of importance that it is to the average North American rental store. Over here, even those companies presenting themselves as consumer friendly, and actively touting for retail sales, still earn the bulk of their revenue from commercial business. I consider that the real enemy to our financial wellbeing is not a lack of sales opportunities, but the relentless increase in the cost of running our business, brought about by the action (or inaction) of officialdom in its many and proliferating guises. Most of us get the square root of zero in return for our excessive business rates, and many well intended regulations are over-policed to the letter by faceless council or civil service departments whose only goal is to self-perpetuate.
Even the police short change us. Theft of kit is treated as a low priority, very often only meriting the issue of a crime number over the phone, or a visit by a community officer three weeks later. When we do discover our stolen plant is parked in the local gipsy compound, we are politely told there is not enough police manpower to recover it - and if we take the law into our own hands, guess who will end up in court?
Despite all this, we are a resilient and generally profitable industry that history has shown is well able to weather downturns in the national economy, and long may that continue! The optimism that was evident at the beginning of the year should not be allowed to evaporate at the whim of the general media, who seem to be turning a situation that warrants measured concern into a crisis.
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1.8.10/3:40 am