Andy Savva, Managing Director of Savva Automotive, filled a seminar room at a recent trade show with his presentation, ‘A New Service Way: Effective and Efficient workshop’ aimed at boosting productivity, margins and morale within the independent garage.
“The issues facing us working in the independent sector are more complex and challenging than ever before”, he said. “From human resources to competition from fast-fits and dealers, your actual image, tooling, training and of course, technical advancements in vehicle design are all problems we as an industry are facing”.
During his presentation at Mechanex Sandown, the garage entrepreneur displayed images, comparing ‘good’ and ‘bad’ garages in 2016 that he worked with; explaining that employers should be maintaining a healthy and safe working environment, with tools labelled and placed in an appropriate area to utilise workshop capacity effectively.
Savva also provided guidance to help garages calculate the correct labour rate instead of charging the ‘going rate in the area’ for individual businesses while attempting to bridge the gap between independent and franchised garages. He said: “Generally, independent garages see franchised garages as competitors and franchised garages historically, put us down as independents” he continued: “I believe we both should be a collective progressive, professional sector where a consumer has the choice to go and have their car repaired properly in an honest fashion. I don’t believe we should have this culture of ‘them and us’ because that’s what’s keeping us segregated and our industry unprofessional”.
Other industry talks included: ‘DPF Diagnosis, Recovery and Repair’ orchestrated by ADS Director Frank Massey and ‘The Future of MOT training’ hosted by representatives from the RMI.
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