GITI Service Portfolio ‘Unique’ Within Value Segment

Since its establishment early last year, one of the primary focuses of GITI Tire (UK) Ltd. has been to provide a class leading level of service to both small and large fleets. In recent months the company has reported signing a number of agreements with UK fleets, including tyre supply for the 50 plus vehicles operated by Derbyshire based BJ Waters (Transport) Ltd. and for the 50 plus vehicle fleet belonging to Manchester’s Hadfields Transport Limited.

According to Peter Foulkes, GITI Tire’s marketing manager for the company’s European truck and bus business, the company believes its combination of products and service backup offers something unique within the value sector of the truck tyre business: “With a simple business philosophy, the company recognised the need to provide the industry with a class leading service package and has established a sales and operations centre based in Manchester and recruited regional sales and technical specialists with many years’ previous experience with premium tyre manufactures. We pride ourselves on being the easiest tyre company to do business with.”  

Over the past year and a half or so, GITI Tire’s Manchester based UK operation has established a network of key dealers responsible for carrying out fleet service activities. Lyons reports that only dealers possessing the resources and capability to provide fleets with the highest level of service, whether scheduled maintenance or roadside breakdown, have been selected. The service coverage available through GITI Tire is not restricted to fleets operating locally or regionally, either: “To provide for hauliers whose operation spans both the UK and continental Europe, the company has engaged with one of Europe’s leading Incident Management Centres in order to facilitate roadside breakdowns on a pan-European basis,” Lyons explains.

“Specific focus has been in the design and development of fuel efficient low rolling resistance tyres to reduce both vehicle operating cost and the impact of disposed casings on the environment,” Peter Foulkes adds, commenting on the ways in which the GT Radial range meets the requirements of modern fleet users. “Additionally, great emphasis has been made in the ‘cradle to grave’ capabilities and the whole life cycle of the tyre from first life, re-groove, re-tread, second re-groove, second life and environmental casing disposal.”

An advantage GITI Tire has over many of its value segment competitors is that many of its products are designed with European conditions in mind. “GITI has made a significant investment in a European tyre testing facility, based at the internationally acclaimed MIRA proving ground,” Peter Foulkes elaborates. “The GITI Tire Europe Technical Centre (ETC) at MIRA is employed in the development of tyre products, both passenger car and truck for the European and worldwide applications, for both the replacement and original equipment market segments.

“In addition to tyre development and testing at ETC, the company has been actively engaged for over five years in an extensive testing programme in both the UK and throughout continental Europe,” Foulkes adds. “Working closely with both UK and European fleets, the GITI Tire Technical Team headed up by technical director Lennart Lindstrom has developed a range of new products tailor-made to the requirements of European commercial vehicle operators.”

Summing up GITI Tire’s fleet portfolio, the company’s European truck and bus marketing manager states that close cooperation between the company’s R&D centre and its manufacturing plants has enabled it “to react to the commercial and technical requirements of the market in a very short space of time, developing niche value added products and services for its customers.”