Despite the economic downtime and the road haulage industry in turmoil, Eddie Stobart have increased their year-end revenue nearly 400%. Their big secret – avoiding empty running.
Pre-tax profits have jumped to £23.9m from £3.5m.
Here’s what the chief exec Andrew Tinkler had to say:
“Our innovative cost model is really the key to our continued success. In simple terms, the customer only pays for what he needs. If he wants 50 trucks one day then 100 the next we can do this because of our size and national reach. We also pool all our customers together and view them as one large customer.
“This means our own-branded Eddie Stobart trucks can drive into a customer to drop off and then go to another customer nearby to load up. The key difference is that our trucks are planned to avoid empty running.
“Minimising empty running and maintaining high fleet utilisation enables us to share savings with customers. This model is very different to most hauliers’, who operate more traditional open book arrangements.
“Stobart is able to provide a flexible service because of its advanced IT planning systems and its ‘Tramper’ drivers, who sleep in their cabs; allowing them to travel the UK freely as they follow the collection and delivery details that are uploaded electronically direct to their in-cab displays.”
Now, of course we all know that Eddie Stobart is a giant, however, the same business principles can be applied no matter what your size.
What Eddie Stobart have demonstrated (on a large scale) is what can be achieved by keeping your fleet running as close to full as possible at all times.
We hope this provides some inspiration and demonstrates what is possible. We hope Shiply is one part of the jigsaw which will enable you reach full business potential.