Mink Coat and No Knickers
and Merry Christmas to you all too. We don't normally give a shout out to the Accounts and Numbers people in our lives - unloved and unwashed as they are. We, as have every other company on the planet, have been embedding AI systems into our internal accounts for 4 years now. This has allowed us to reduce our accounts activity to just 40 minutes each day for 1 person - down from 3 people. 'Way hey' you might say - or 'what a shite flex etc'. So what is the benefit for you - my lovely suppliers (and customers)?
Well it means we pay our suppliers the same day as we receive the invoice: zero days; nada. Every Business School would be running from this with their head on fire shouting 'NO - are you mad?' Well - a little perhaps. It means we miss out on millions of pounds of your cash - we do not use you as our bank.
We owe nobody anything - nor have we since 1997. It does mean we have Knickers and we observe most of our competition 'On Stop' or without supply this Christmas whilst walzing around in a Mink Coat. We have lost count of the number or our suppliers that tell us of the manufacturing companies that do not pay them or do not have a proverbial pot to piss in. Not us - that is not our way. We love all of our suppliers and when they give us good service and good products they are paid - SAME DAY.
Merry Christmas and raise a toast to 'Newton Trailers' (who is the one who pays you same day).
Posted by Andrew on 18/12/2024
I keep bumping into people who claim to read this occaisional rambling section of the website. (It is only here for SEO reasons). I find it deeply troubling that anyone would waste more than 2 breaths on this part of the site. There are so many good things in the other areas. The sad thing is it is always the bloody suppliers who read it and none of the customers!! Have you nothing better to do? Shoo!
A bit like the opening lines of Dickens 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times'. It appears that Covid-19 did change a lot of things in the UK market. It broke a lot of trust between supplier and customer. Large companies were forced to use their school Latin to bandy about words like force majeur etc. It was understandable why contracts made had to be broken but it is now more difficult to believe bits of paper will protect you in the future if people you have known for 20 years rip them up when prices move hard against you, or when it is more convenient to walk away from a deal. So I think a lot of this 'trust' is behind the splintering of the UK market. So many new suppliers craving market share. Tolkien would have been proud. Pleased to give him a name check even if he went to Oxford. He and Boole are the only two good things to come out of that filthy University.
I was at a lecture recently at which the head of the Institute for Sales said '60 percent of purchase decisions are incorrect'. That goes again to the heart of Trust. Presumably 60 percent of the market put their trust in someone who gave them the wrong advice and said 'Trust Me'. Once again that goes back to the splintering of the UK market and the number of new comers trying to get to our shores. Certainly if these new entrants get any time with a base in the UK they should see some success. So it was an interesting time - for Newton it was the best of times. We had a huge set of results during and after Covid. Will it be the worst of times? Well as a dealer (aka whore) we have to roll with the changes. It is those with fixed postions who win during steady times and then lose during rapid change. At Newton we love change. So if some of the Turkish companies find market here - that will be interesting. There are Chinese trailers landing in useful numbers - we have bought some and I cannot tell them apart. So plenty of change and we shall have to work our way through it. I am glad we have the 40 per cent of the market who gave us their trust and got it right........
Posted by Andrew on 09/09/2024
STAS are a stand-out European superstar in the world of tipping trailers, who you can trust. They have challenged themselves to create some absolutely mahoosive computer models with years worth of clever engineering time and vast investment. The STAS engineering department has 20 Engineers dedicated to top class performance. This performance involved collaborative work with Belgium Universities and the technically most advanced suppliers. To what end?. To create a multi-nested model of safety performance. This new knowledge is only possible to simulate with huge computational power and newest available and in-house built software.
STAS have advanced using whole trailer analytical techniques to a full DIN tilt test model; a full ISO model and most importantly for the UK market a full IRTE Guideline Class A Tilt Test performance. This new STAS GPT has heritage that a multi-generational family company brings to the party of both aluminium and steel chassis engineering. With 60 years of unbroken manufacturing, constructing thousands of tipping trailers per annum for all weights in all markets using data from Class A Chobham tests of the past. So to trust a 'Class A Tilt Test standard' then you have to invest vast time, energy and engineering resources to fully understand your product performance. The new STAS GPT meets this Halo Standard. Meet the Halo at Newton Trailers.
Posted by Andrew on 01/07/2024
State Of the Union
Is it just me or does the world seem super topsy turvey at the moment?
The Game of Thrones of the tipping trailer market are revolving once again and the Europeans seem set to make another move in the UK. Partly due to the lack of sales in Europe and partly because the UK is the second largest trailer market in Europe and arguably has been ignored for so long. So Schmitz, Wielton, Krone, and then a whole batch of Turkish groups are showing excitement in making trailers for us.
From the Newton seat the market appears to be at an historic low - or perhaps we are just playing a bad game of it. Fruehauf are resurgent and powering forwards under MV ownership. So it is time to roll up our sleeves and get better - a good Spring clean then and prepare our game for the Summer harvest.
So once again a reminder that this Blog Post - so unread and so unused - is just the ramblings of an old man's mind and should not be used in a court of Law and as the Spring heats up may I say God Bless to all my customers and wish you all joyous sticky toffee puddings and warm beer.
Posted by Andrew on 26/03/2024
Somehow we have staggered through to October 2023. What a weird year. Apart from everyone appears to be getting older it is hard to say anything about 2023. A non year year. The competition is getting busy. Companies struggling to find the volumes in their home markets, like Benalu, Schmitz, Ozgul (Colson), Mega, STAS and a whole range of others are trying to find market in the UK. And fair dooze they are finding some sales. How good they are and how long they will persist when their own markets crank back up in 2024 is anyone's guess. Like some Zombie that will not die, or perhaps more like the Mummy Returns and then ....returns again, Fruehauf has come alive and is hitting the numbers. Fruehauf appears infinitely elastic in how far you can stretch a brand without it snapping. So like the Grand National the race is full of old names and new names. How many will make it around the course and how many will retire is simply unknowable.
Interest rates are complicating the discussions. Such a long time at low rates and then now a sudden spike has led to gold star customers being served rates from 8 to 9 per cent and silver and bronze into the early teens. That is a painful issue that cannot be easily addressed. Perhaps Q1 2024 will help easy the interest rates although a Labour government is not normally a great thing for our industry.
So now we are looking to 2024 there will be a big falling out of company names as they either find a market in the UK or retreat - take market share or leave the battlefield. Interest rates and basic need will dictate the total size of the market. Almost makes you want to skip a year and go straight to 2025.
Posted by Andrew on 09/10/2023
