NDI prepares for OTR sector debut

Earlier this year, NDI Tyre & Tube Supplies Ltd. announced plans to outsource the distribution of its passenger car private brand and alter operations to shift the company’s focus onto the supply of specialised and niche market products. Since this time the local subsidiary of Denmark’s Nordisk Daek Import A.S. has been busy implementing these plans, and the result of this is that NDI is now ready to participate in the OTR sector to a far, far greater extent.

“We will be in a position where we can gain access to OTR product from our parent company and from other suppliers,” NDI managing director Ian Smith confirmed when speaking with Tyres & Accessories. “We are pulling out of the passenger car side of things completely and are concentrating on more lucrative aspects of the business; NDI has signed an agreement with Birmingham-based company Mr. Tyre for the distribution of our Nordexx private brand.”

Smith explains that while NDI is moving away from its passenger car business it will continue to supply agricultural, industrial and commercial truck tyres from its UK operation. And in addition to this, the company intends to place a greater focus upon maximising how it utilises Nordisk Daek Import’s large warehouse in Denmark and the other European warehouses it operates. Doing so, he notes, will give NDI a far broader range in the UK and enable it to effective achieve its aim of being a multi-brand operation able to supply products from a wide range of manufacturers.

“Furthermore, we plan to become a national rather than a regional wholesaler,” Smith adds. As part of this, NDI is moving from its existing West Midlands location to Swadlincote, Derbyshire, to a site with a logistics company that will enable the company to distribute its products nationwide. “We are moving our operation there in the last week of June but the transition will not occur overnight. Moving our stock there will take time but everything should be completed in the second half of 2011.”

What does this move to Derbyshire mean for NDI’s participation in the OTR tyre sector? “There is no way we could service the OTR sector from our West Midlands location,” the NDI managing director answers. “OTR is part of our plan for the future. The OTR sector has to-date only accounted for a small percent of our sales as it hasn’t been a marketplace where we’ve been consciously involved. The products we can source from our head office in Denmark give us opportunities going forward. We intend to work closer with Denmark and its experienced OTR staff in future.”

As would be expected, the company’s withdrawal from the passenger car tyre segment did have an impact upon sales, yet Ian Smith confirms that this is being compensated for by inroads being made into the OTR sector. When asked what sort of progress NDI is making to this end, Smith replies that the company is “taking a ‘softly, softly’ approach to entering the OTR sector.” He adds that anyone looking at OTR with a view to finding a partner in the business should talk to NDI.