Courier Role Changes
The
Changing Role of Couriers
The recession has brought changes to the Courier industry,
some good some bad. Recessions have always been a challenge
and an opportunity to companies, depending on the attitude
of the company management.
In the Courier industry, over manning by courier companies
has largely not been a problem, with most companies employing
their own vehicles and staff for prestige customers, and the
excess workload has traditionally been covered by smaller
self employed couriers. As the industry has been shrinking,
this has hit the small one man courier hardest, with loss
of business through their customers folding, or going through
‘pre-pack administration’ [ the company goes bankrupt
on Friday, and is bought back by it’s directors on Monday
free of debt], or the bigger courier companies giving less
work out.
It isn’t all doom and gloom for
the small courier, with so many going out of business,
there must be customers out there, waiting for you to contact
them. The traditional model for a small business was, to have
a maximum of 25% of your turnover from any one source; I have
always said that for a small business this should be 10% at
the most. The advantages to this are obvious, if your biggest
customer ceases to trade with you for whatever reason, you
can still survive, secondly if you get a contract which is
higher than your 10% maximum, you have the incentive to get
out and chase more business in order to maintain your percentage
ratio. Couriers tend to fail to plan,
or even produce a business model, and rarely refer
back to it if they do have a plan or business model. The other
main downfall of the small courier is non
payment of invoices.
The larger companies
will delay payment as long as possible,
and then start using these standard tricks to avoid payment,
and give you the run around. The 1st
sign of this is after you have put in an invoice, you
are told the invoice address has changed. The
2nd sign is they will change the invoice codes you
have to use in order for accounts to pay you, the 3rd
sign is when they change the job numbers. This is apart
from the standard ‘ the system has gone down’
The recession has also forced companies to look at ways of
saving costs; one alternative to cutting costs has been the
M1 shuttle. Another way has been to send more pallets on overnight
pallet networks. The principal objections to this method,
has been the need to move pallets on and off vehicles usually
at least 5 times during transit, resulting in possible loss
or damage, and the very low insurance cover compared to what
courier firms offer.
Another way companies are cutting costs is described on our
cost comparison page . We have found
that once companies are made aware of the cost of running
their own vehicles, against that of a courier company, as
the vehicles are due for changing, companies are looking to
reduce costs by using couriers. The main drawback to
this is they no longer have their company name on their vehicles.
RFT Express provides a solution by supplying vehicles for
free or a very much reduced cost to customers wanting a vehicle
in their livery ....for more information
read Our van
Your Name.
European companies look hard to save costs. RFT Express has
seen an increase in European work fuelled by the fall in the
pound against the euro. British companies tend to rely on
staff lay offs to cut costs, and usually don’t look
towards management for cost saving alternatives, or ways to
increase market share.
The recession is a challenge or an opportunity,
the choice is up to the individual person or company.
Vic
Farron RFT
Express. .
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