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The ECP rocketship shows no signs of slowing

Whichever way you cut the company numbers it looks deeply impressive, daunting even. It’s now 35 years since the original Highways Autos store was opened by 18-year-old Sukhpal Singh in Wilsden but, with a projected turnover of £340 million this year, ECP seems nowhere near the zenith of its rocketship growth trajectory.

Singh recently said he saw no reason why his dedicated and energetic team shouldn’t continue the drive to create a company with a turnover of £1 billion and 10,000 employees across Europe. That’s about three times the size of the company now, but could just be the tip of the iceberg.

When CAT went to meet the ECP team at its Wembley HQ and massive Tamworth national distribution centre, we discovered turnover could get close to £1billion in the UK alone. And expansion into Europe? Why limit yourself to looking at Europe when the rest of the world is there, too?

ECP’s journey could eventually take it around the world, powered by a philosophy of getting every detail right at a local level, but how quickly can it get to the £1 billion mark and where will it go from there?

Let’s start here at home. Singh says expansion into Europe and beyond is not in his ‘immediate plans’, with a target to get to half a billion turnover in the UK over the next 36 months: “There’s enough to do here in the UK for the next three years. We’ve got geography to cover and product ranges to cover as well. There’s so much to do.”

ECP people’s director Martin Gray says: “For every £10 spent in the UK we only £1 to £2 of it. There’s still 80% to 90% of the mark left for us to acquire in the UK.

“I’m not saying that we want all of it, but could we get 30% of the spend? I wouldn’t say that was unreasonable. Could that get us close to £1bn in the whole of UK? I think so. At that point we’d be looking at other expansion as well.”

More of that added expansion a little later on, but development of the network will drive growth in the UK until then. New ECP branches are currently opening at the rate of 10 to 15 a year with the immediate target of having 110 branches to cover 97% of the UK.

At the time of writing there were 87, the 87^th opening in York the day after our visit, but this figure will already be out of date by the time you read this. Huddersfield also arrived in July, with Singh saying ECP is now looking at Potters Bar, Stoke and further north to Scotland.

With this sort of branch rollout rate, ECP has got well practiced in the art of rolling into town. It uses geomapping technology developed at the University of Leeds to find appropriate locations and, says Gray, has a ‘cookie cutter’ approach in setting up shop – up to a point.

The difficulty comes in finding the right people, says Gray, who is ready to spend £1 million next year in employee development. Each region will have a centre of excellence, in branches, were training is available.

Gray says: “There’s not a people tree I can pluck the right kind of people off – it’s our biggest single barrier to growth. We do work at a ferocious pace, it’s very intense, and for a lot of the time business can be very full on. It’s a bit controversial but it’s like a positive drug, it’s intoxicating.

“It’s not for everyone, and that’s okay,’ says the ever-enthusiastic Gray, “but why don’t you come touch us and feel us and see if you like us?”

After branches, there’s an even more rapid story of growth story with the Bosch-backed AutoCrew garage concept for which ECP is the exclusive distributor. The first opened in February, there were 70 when we visited ECP, but this will number 80 by the time CAT lands on your lap. By the end of the year there will be 150.

The process of percolating and integrating into the marketplace doesn’t end there, either. Right now, garages are also trialling a brand-new ECP garage management system. With a new catalogue in the pipeline, too, the aim to help garages with a suite of support and, of course, ensure ECP’s closer connection with their business.

“You’ll be able to press a button and get repair times, ordering schedules, technical information and all of those services,” says Singh. “A lot of garage workers today are very good guys and very hard working, but they might not be business people. We can help with that.”

The system will roll out officially next year with ECP hoping to have 2000 garages using it by the end of 2012. We don’t doubt they will, so watch this space.

Singh says growth the impressive national distribution centre in Tamworth can cope with growth up to £700 million with increased throughput.

It’s a model of efficiency. Voice verification means pickers have two free hands to grab parts. At the moment the pick rate per person is 145/150 items per hour, helped by the usual trick of having the most commonly-needed parts at eye level.

There is, of course, the ‘long tail’ of parts which logistics director Steve Horne says ECP has to have to ‘have a ticket to the party.’ This means Tamworth has 100% coverage of the car parc with 114,000 parts available to branches overnight. Every part for every car, after all.

ECP’s hubs mean it can get parts for 92% of the car parc to branches within the hour, however, while the branches themselves carry 15,000 different parts to cover 85% of the car parc.

Improved return rates will also help to save the company a fortune and boost profits going forward. At the moment it’s running at 18-19%, which is pretty good, but the target is to cut this to 10% in 12 months. The new catalogue and garage management system will help with this and encourage garages to order online by offering discounts for doing so.

And then there are the new product lines for the UK. Horne is having to move some things around at Tamworth to make room for some tyres – 60,000 of them. If ECP are sending vans to garages with injectors, pumps, belts and oils on them, why not tyres?

What about acquisitions? Do other companies need to be looking over their shoulders?

At the moment organic growth is the name of the game. Singh says he did enter negotiations with an unnamed company in the UK, but back out, preferring the less messy blank sheet of paper that comes from starting new branches.

“There’s always room for a fresh idea,” says Singh, reflecting on how a demand-driven delivery process would surprise those in, say, Germany used to allocated slots. “They’re quite rigid and inflexible, If you introduced the concept of on-demand you could change things. Our cataloguing would be a big advantage.” Other markets excite Singh, too.

“Eastern European markets have another ten years of growth. It will be one of the considerations. We might say let’s do China, let’s do India because they’re going through phenomenal growth – it’s double-digit growth, year-on-year.”

There’s enough to be getting on with in the UK for now, but what of the tactics when the time is right to explore the globe? Gray says: “We have the ambition and appetite for expansion in various parts of the globe, but it will be driven through in a risk-averse way.

“We don’t have a plan for world domination – we’re not a James Bond villain stroking a cat. We’ll go for controlled expansion, looking at the markets locally, assessing the market, looking at our supply relationships and then driving that very aggressively. When we go into a country, we will do it very aggressively.”

Is all of this happening too fast, though, even the growth just in the UK? Singh answers. “Read the balance sheet. Last year, for example, to show our faith in the business, we capitalised our reserves  – £28 million. We could have taken as a dividend in one hit, but we capitalised it to show this a long-term situation.

“We have very little borrowings, we don’t operate on an overdraft. Our growth is financed through our cash flow. We buy very well, we sell well, make good profits and reinvest it.”

In any case, the £1 billion figure isn’t being chased for the sake of it, says Gray. It’s a very big number, and one that’s easy to get fixated on, but Gray says it’s just a future milestone that will be pass on ECP’s journey into the future. It’s not the final destination, because there is no final destination.

“I don’t think there is an end game. For true entrepreneurs, people who build real value, it isn’t about the exit or the end. They don’t actually get there. Am I at the end point? No. And if the answer’s ‘no’ then lets keep on doing it and doing it and doing it – there’s still so much, if only I had more time! That attitude is quite rare.”

Singh giggles and says: “You can have a busy day, and do a extraordinary amount of business, but then you get maybe 6% missed calls and you think ‘my God’ – if we didn’t miss those calls it could have been even better!”

Did he ever dream the shop in Wilsden would turn into the ECP we have today? “I wasn’t aiming this high,” he admits, but he must have been aiming pretty close.

With relentless energy and a huge amount of momentum, the ECP team is heading into orbit from where it need never fall back down to earth. The view from up there can be dizzying.

The ECP spaceship is still taking off

Whichever way you cut the company numbers it looks deeply impressive, daunting even. It’s now 35 years since the original Highways Autos store was opened by 18-year-old Sukhpal Singh in Wilsden but, with a projected turnover of £340 million this year, ECP seems nowhere near the zenith of its rocketship growth trajectory.

Singh recently said he saw no reason why his dedicated and energetic team shouldn’t continue the drive to create a company with a turnover of £1 billion and 10,000 employees across Europe. That’s about three times the size of the company now, but could just be the tip of the iceberg.

When CAT went to meet the ECP team at its Wembley HQ and massive Tamworth national distribution centre, we discovered turnover could get close to £1billion in the UK alone. And expansion into Europe? Why limit yourself to looking at Europe when the rest of the world is there, too?

ECP’s journey could eventually take it around the world, powered by a philosophy of getting every detail right at a local level, but how quickly can it get to the £1 billion mark and where will it go from there?

Let’s start here at home. Singh says expansion into Europe and beyond is not in his ‘immediate plans’, with a target to get to half a billion turnover in the UK over the next 36 months: “There’s enough to do here in the UK for the next three years. We’ve got geography to cover and product ranges to cover as well. There’s so much to do.”

ECP people’s director Martin Gray says: “For every £10 spent in the UK we only £1 to £2 of it. There’s still 80% to 90% of the mark left for us to acquire in the UK.

“I’m not saying that we want all of it, but could we get 30% of the spend? I wouldn’t say that was unreasonable. Could that get us close to £1bn in the whole of UK? I think so. At that point we’d be looking at other expansion as well.”

More of that added expansion a little later on, but development of the network will drive growth in the UK until then. New ECP branches are currently opening at the rate of 10 to 15 a year with the immediate target of having 110 branches to cover 97% of the UK.

At the time of writing there were 87, the 87^th opening in York the day after our visit, but this figure will already be out of date by the time you read this. Huddersfield also arrived in July, with Singh saying ECP is now looking at Potters Bar, Stoke and further north to Scotland.

With this sort of branch rollout rate, ECP has got well practiced in the art of rolling into town. It uses geomapping technology developed at the University of Leeds to find appropriate locations and, says Gray, has a ‘cookie cutter’ approach in setting up shop – up to a point.

The difficulty comes in finding the right people, says Gray, who is ready to spend £1 million next year in employee development. Each region will have a centre of excellence, in branches, were training is available.

Gray says: “There’s not a people tree I can pluck the right kind of people off – it’s our biggest single barrier to growth. We do work at a ferocious pace, it’s very intense, and for a lot of the time business can be very full on. It’s a bit controversial but it’s like a positive drug, it’s intoxicating.

“It’s not for everyone, and that’s okay,’ says the ever-enthusiastic Gray, “but why don’t you come touch us and feel us and see if you like us?”

After branches, there’s an even more rapid story of growth story with the Bosch-backed AutoCrew garage concept for which ECP is the exclusive distributor. The first opened in February, there were 70 when we visited ECP, but this will number 80 by the time CAT lands on your lap. By the end of the year there will be 150.

The process of percolating and integrating into the marketplace doesn’t end there, either. Right now, garages are also trialling a brand-new ECP garage management system. With a new catalogue in the pipeline, too, the aim to help garages with a suite of support and, of course, ensure ECP’s closer connection with their business.

“You’ll be able to press a button and get repair times, ordering schedules, technical information and all of those services,” says Singh. “A lot of garage workers today are very good guys and very hard working, but they might not be business people. We can help with that.”

The system will roll out officially next year with ECP hoping to have 2000 garages using it by the end of 2012. We don’t doubt they will, so watch this space.

Singh says growth the impressive national distribution centre in Tamworth can cope with growth up to £700 million with increased throughput.

It’s a model of efficiency. Voice verification means pickers have two free hands to grab parts. At the moment the pick rate per person is 145/150 items per hour, helped by the usual trick of having the most commonly-needed parts at eye level.

There is, of course, the ‘long tail’ of parts which logistics director Steve Horne says ECP has to have to ‘have a ticket to the party.’ This means Tamworth has 100% coverage of the car parc with 114,000 parts available to branches overnight. Every part for every car, after all.

ECP’s hubs mean it can get parts for 92% of the car parc to branches within the hour, however, while the branches themselves carry 15,000 different parts to cover 85% of the car parc.

Improved return rates will also help to save the company a fortune and boost profits going forward. At the moment it’s running at 18-19%, which is pretty good, but the target is to cut this to 10% in 12 months. The new catalogue and garage management system will help with this and encourage garages to order online by offering discounts for doing so.

And then there are the new product lines for the UK. Horne is having to move some things around at Tamworth to make room for some tyres – 60,000 of them. If ECP are sending vans to garages with injectors, pumps, belts and oils on them, why not tyres?

What about acquisitions? Do other companies need to be looking over their shoulders?

At the moment organic growth is the name of the game. Singh says he did enter negotiations with an unnamed company in the UK, but back out, preferring the less messy blank sheet of paper that comes from starting new branches.

“There’s always room for a fresh idea,” says Singh, reflecting on how a demand-driven delivery process would surprise those in, say, Germany used to allocated slots. “They’re quite rigid and inflexible, If you introduced the concept of on-demand you could change things. Our cataloguing would be a big advantage.” Other markets excite Singh, too.

“Eastern European markets have another ten years of growth. It will be one of the considerations. We might say let’s do China, let’s do India because they’re going through phenomenal growth – it’s double-digit growth, year-on-year.”

There’s enough to be getting on with in the UK for now, but what of the tactics when the time is right to explore the globe? Gray says: “We have the ambition and appetite for expansion in various parts of the globe, but it will be driven through in a risk-averse way.

“We don’t have a plan for world domination – we’re not a James Bond villain stroking a cat. We’ll go for controlled expansion, looking at the markets locally, assessing the market, looking at our supply relationships and then driving that very aggressively. When we go into a country, we will do it very aggressively.”

Is all of this happening too fast, though, even the growth just in the UK? Singh answers. “Read the balance sheet. Last year, for example, to show our faith in the business, we capitalised our reserves  – £28 million. We could have taken as a dividend in one hit, but we capitalised it to show this a long-term situation.

“We have very little borrowings, we don’t operate on an overdraft. Our growth is financed through our cash flow. We buy very well, we sell well, make good profits and reinvest it.”

In any case, the £1 billion figure isn’t being chased for the sake of it, says Gray. It’s a very big number, and one that’s easy to get fixated on, but Gray says it’s just a future milestone that will be pass on ECP’s journey into the future. It’s not the final destination, because there is no final destination.

“I don’t think there is an end game. For true entrepreneurs, people who build real value, it isn’t about the exit or the end. They don’t actually get there. Am I at the end point? No. And if the answer’s ‘no’ then lets keep on doing it and doing it and doing it – there’s still so much, if only I had more time! That attitude is quite rare.”

Singh giggles and says: “You can have a busy day, and do a extraordinary amount of business, but then you get maybe 6% missed calls and you think ‘my God’ – if we didn’t miss those calls it could have been even better!”

Did he ever dream the shop in Wilsden would turn into the ECP we have today? “I wasn’t aiming this high,” he admits, but he must have been aiming pretty close.

With relentless energy and a huge amount of momentum, the ECP team is heading into orbit from where it need never fall back down to earth. The view from up there can be dizzying.

The Little Trees brand will incorporate over 60 fragrances

One of the most recognisable brands in the UK aftermarket, Magic Tree air fresheners has announced a name change.

Saxon, which distributes the Magic Tree fresheners exclusively, has announced that from this month the Magic Tree brand will change its name to Little Trees.

Launched in the UK in the 1960’s, the Magic Tree brand has become on the most recognisable faces in the aftermarket, selling over 200 million units. Over the course of the brand’s history its fragrance line has been extended from one initial offering to over 30.

The new Little Trees brand will double that line with over 60 fragrances. The brand will also be accompanied by its own dedicated website, which will contain full product information on the range, as well as interactive media.

Saxon chief executive David Kent said: “The decision was made to change the name from Magic Tree to Little Trees in order to open up new sales opportunities for our customers. The Little Tree brand offers more fragrance varieties, designs, POS and marketing material and support from the USA.

“This increased offering gives us and our customers more choice, variety and flexibility.”

Sukhpal Singh Ahluwalia, chairman and founder of Euro Car Parts has received an invitation from the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer to head to 10 Downing Street for a ‘reception for business leaders’ event in September.

Prior to his visit, Sukhpal is inviting members of the garage trade to email him with their comments and thoughts on the issues facing the industry. He said he would like the top politicians to hear about the impact any relaxation on MOT testing would have on the motor trade.

He said: “ I will use the event to raise awareness of the key issues in our sector, including the huge dangers of any reduction in the frequency of the MOT.

“This is an exceptional opportunity for our Prime Minister to understand the current business challenges in the aftermarket and for Euro Car Parts to champion the sector.”

Garages can email saveourmot@eurocarparts.com with their thoughts and comments. The deadline for suggestions is 6.30pm on Tuesday 13^th September.

Three new recruits and movers in the ranks of TTC. The commercial vehicle components supplier has announced the appointments of three new members of its product team.

Firstly, Sue Grainger has joined TTC as a product manager. Sue comes from ArvinMeritor where she was marketing publication manager. Sue has a wealth of experience within the automotive aftermarket, particularly in CV applications.

Sue will be using her skills for managing products, working with marketing and purchasing, and launching new ranges and promoting new business growth.

Sue said: “I wanted to develop my career in product management and see this as the perfect opportunity to do so with a highly respected organisation. I have been warmly welcomed to the team and it is immediately evident  that the teams work closely together.”

The next move is Nic Sipson who has already been working in TTC’s technical department for the past five years.

Nic is looking forward to his new role at TTC as a product assistant where he believes he will be adding his extensive technical expertise and support to the team.

And last but by no means least; Robin Wasteney has also joined TTC’s product team. Robin has already worked at TTC as well as Unipart for over 18 years. He has worked in the motor industry for his entire life, and believes the TTC product team will benefit from his experience and engineering know-how.

Robin said: “I enjoy working at TTC – it’s a challenging role that is also rewarding.”

Darren Miller, TTC’s head of marketing said: “We welcome these new appointments internally and externally and we hope they will enjoy their new roles at TTC.  This is an exciting time for the business, and as we continue to grow and partner with market leading brands, we will continue to expand our team.”

The website contains lots of new interactive features

NGK spark plugs have launched a new website, hoping to drive new sales.

The spark plug, glow plug and NTK Lambda sensor manufacturer’s website now features a new innovative approach, and is linked to the company’s own TV channel, NGK TV.

The company says partners interested in the new embedded TV channel can use it to ‘transmit’ their programmes. NGK hopes such programmes might include coverage of the FIA World Rally Championship.

The site is also being used to launch NGK Pitboard, the company’s first app. The Pitboard will let users keep track of news in and around the racing paddock easier than ever before, giving users a unique insight into the life of an F1 team.

Gerard Irving, NGK’s marketing manager said: “We believe our new website sets new standards for the aftermarket.

“[The website] will be packed with everything they need to know about the company in a fresh, new environment with many new ground-breaking features, such as the NGK TV, Twitter and Facebook social channels, plus NGK Pitboard for F1 race fans.”`

You can access the new website here.

Hot on the heels of First Line’s last show appearance in Madrid, the t has now set its sights on the Automechanika event in Russia.

The company says it likes showing off in Europe, as aftermarket firms in the region seem to be keen on stocking their OE quality products.

The Automechanika event in Russia is being held at the modern Crocus Expo centre in Moscow. The event runs between the 24th-27th September, and First Line can be found exhibiting throughout the show.

Dan Joyner from First Line said: “We already do a lot of business in Eastern Europe with the First Line brand, but with the addition of the Borg & Beck clutch range, we can provide Russian distributors and their customers access to a brand with a global reputation for quality and pedigree.

“By exhibiting at Automechanika we can actively demonstrate the quality of our products and the level of our commitment to the market and we therefore expect a surge of interest from workshops.”

This is the 41st incarnation of the competition

3M is sponsoring a global event to help showcase the next generation of young talent.

The biennial WorldSkills competition is headed to London this year, showcasing the best and brightest of the World’s future talent.

Now in its 41^st year, the competition will showcase a whole host of different skills, from construction to IT, and from engineering to manufacturing. 3M will be paying particular attention to those areas of the competition focusing on automotive bodywork and repair.

3M has previously supported the UK entrants in the WorldSkills competition by providing entrants with products and protective clothing for training purposes.

Carla O’ Brien from 3M’s aftermarket division said: “WorldSkills is a great way for the UK’s body shop technicians of the future to compete against the best of the rest from around the world and receive truly international recognition for their efforts. We are delighted to be sponsoring the event and would like to wish the very best of luck to all the participants.

85% of the Yuasa workforce come from Swindon

Yuasa Battery Sales UK has celebrated it’s 30^th birthday by opening a new sales and distribution centre in Swindon.

The new facility features 7,000 square metres of warehousing space, brining the company’s industrial and automotive battery units together under the same roof for the first time.

In its 30 years of trading Yuasa has grown to become one of the UK’s biggest suppliers of automotive batteries, selling around 7.5 million batteries in both the UK and Europe.

The Mayor of Swindon Cllr Ray Ballman helped to open the new centre in a ceremony this week. 85% of the Yuasa workforce is now coming from the Swindon area.

Andrew Taylor, managing director of Yuasa UK said: “The location improves our logistics and reduces the company’s carbon footprint significantly.

“In addition, the Swindon area provides an excellent pool of experienced workers as we seek to constantly maintain and improve our customer service.”