Truck Force Turns a Corner

Goodyear Dunlop’s detractors would have the truck tyre market believe that there are serious problems in the company’s commercial vehicle department. Goodyear Dunlop UK, managing director, Mark Brickhill, however, paints quite a different picture. In a recent interview with Tyres & Accessories (to be published in our August magazine) Brickhill gave details of progress in the truck business. Firstly, Brickhill told T&A that Truck Force is already showing signs of being a turnaround success story.

Since the commercial vehicle retail arm separated from the HiQ passenger retail business, and the two chains were each allowed to follow strategies tuned to the respective business areas, both operations appear to be better off. Perhaps the best sign of this is the fact that Truck Force, which was once a significantly loss making operation, is now at breakeven and on schedule to enter profit in 2009. But this doesn’t tell the whole story. From Mark Brickhill’s point of view, the fact that Truck Force has evolved into a service-led operation has had much to do with its improved performance.

On the subject of service, call response performance is singled out as a particularly good indicator. The 14 equity depots Truck Force runs all currently manage to successfully respond to 92 per cent of first calls. Some of the company’s partners are recording results as high as 94 per cent. According to Brickhill, you can’t solve a problem until you know there is a problem – and it is this kind of benchmarking that shows that Goodyear Dunlop has the best service network on the market.

And what of one competitor’s claims that it will be able to take the number three spot in the CV tyre market, according to market share, by the end of 2008? “We have made some clear ‘where to play’ choices,” Brickhill responded, explaining that Goodyear Dunlop doesn’t intend to buy market share or sell tyres at any price. “There is good business still to be had on regional fleets,” he added.