Nothing beats home-grown
September 1st 2009 Bibby Distribution aims to double its profit
and turnover over the next three years. Steve
Potter, operations director at the familyowned
firm, says it's all about the
'discretionary effort' of Bibby's people. Brendan Coyne reports
Family-owned firms don't last two centuries ? seeing off
numerous wars, depressions, famines and countless
recessions ? without knowing what they are doing. Bibby
Distribution, which ended last year with a healthy profit and
surplus cash, is an example of how to harness that knowledge
and turn an economic slump into a business-sharpening tool.
Recently the company announced it aims to double profits
and turnover in the next three years, to around ?380m with
?10m profit. A bold statement, but operations director, Steve
Potter, says Bibby has the customers, the cash and the people to
make it happen.
"The current climate may be operationally challenging in the
short term, but out strategic goals remain the same: to keep and
grow our current customers; to identify acquisitions in our core
business and to win new contracts with new customers. All of
that remains as it was before the recession."
However, what Bibby wants to see coming out of recession is a
better customer perception of how it stands out in a crowded
marketplace. To this end, the company has launched two
initiatives: Project Differentiate and Project Accelerate.
"Both projects are linked," Potter explains. "Project Accelerate
is us defining our culture and values and building that into a
strategic model so that we know internally what our business is
all about and how we stand out from our competition. Project
Differentiate takes all of that work and transfers it into media: we
have a new website, a new corporate presentation and several
other elements that help us to communicate better with people
and raise our profile. Through research, we have found that our
size, scale and capability is often underestimated. So Accelerate is
an internal exercise making sure all our people know what we are
about. Differentiate is about how we go out to the market and
communicate those values."
So how exactly does Bibby differ from its competitors? "It
stems from our private ownership, which means we have
ultimate control over our destiny. The company is 200 years old.
That creates a lot of stability and a enables a commitment to the
long term that our compeititors, by their very nature, do not
have," says Potter. "So we have the freedom to operate in a
different way ? more flexibility with our customers and a real
commitment to the development of our people."
'Investing in people' is a nice term to bandy around, but what
does that actually mean to customers? Potter says it means
better value for money. By way of proof, over half of Bibby
Distribution customers have been with the company for more
than a decade.
"Logistics companies all have trucks and sheds, but it is about
the people we have within the business and their commitment to
us and our customers: How those people are trained and
developed; how they understand what is required of them; what
they can add in the longer term and whether they are actually
committed to discretionary effort ? that's one of the phrases that
we use a lot. How committed are our people to delivering more
than you might expect? And what we find in terms of feedback is
that our customers really apprecate the people that we have in
our operations and the
difference that they make."
Green drive boosts profits
Bibby has been boosting its bottom line and reducing its
environmental impact for some time.
At the start of last year it launched a three-point plan designed to
increase fuel efficiency; utilise full capacity of goods vehicles; and
deploy more efficient new tehnology within its properties where
possible. The plan also looked to reduce waste and costs by
improving fuel usage (with Safe and Fuel Efficient Driving
(SAFED) imlemented into the driver training programme),
supporting new developments in alternative, eco-efficient technology
and implementing new vehicle design .As a result of its actions so
far, Bibby Distribution has already seen a reduction in its levels of
CO2 by over 2,000 tonnes per annum.
"Also, by implementing changes to our warehousing, office
equipment and data systems and retrofitting three of our major
distribution centres with energy efficient lighting – a capital
investment of close to £500,000 – we've made an annual reduction
of over 600 tonnes of CO2," says Potter. While, given the recession,
environmental inititiatives have slipped down the agenda across
many business sectors, Potter says in most cases, "making
environmentally beneficial changes goes hand-in-hand within
reducing business cost".
"We are already seeing the rewards of our work and would urge
businesses throughout the industry to make similar changes to their
operations now in order to improve both environmental standards
and their bottom lines," says Potter.
From shopfloor to director
Steve Potter's talk of commitment to staff is
more than just rhetoric, as the example of Mark
Wilson (pictured right) proves:
Wilson started his career with the company
19 years ago as a warehouse operative in the
NISA Today's operation at Scunthorpe. His
ambition, talent and dedication was recognised
and harnessed by Bibby and Mark eventually became the contract's
general manager. Then, when the operation moved to its new site in
2005, he chose to move into the wider business and took on a
general manager role with responsibility for multiple contracts.
Having got to grips with this step,Wilson has since taken on more
responsibility, developed his own team and is now one of Bibby's
four Divisional Directors. More articles from Bibby Distribution Limited: | 
