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Peoples Ford chairman Brian Gilda reveals how the group has grown to become a £185m-turnover business in this special Dealer Insight sponsored by AutoProtect.
By any standards the 2013 results of Ford specialist Peoples were impressive. The group, which has seven outlets based around Edinburgh and Liverpool, doubled profits to £4.047m, with turnover increasing 26.7% to £185.9m to produce the best results in its 30-year history.
The group was founded in 1983 by entrepreneur and now chairman Brian Gilda who believes Peoples’ latest success has come from a combination of a strong UK market, the strength of the Ford brand and the competitiveness of his seven dealerships.
As Europe has struggled out of recession manufacturers have poured product into the UK market, and realised that customers who were still economically strained would not respond to simple discounts, with the resultant growth of PCP business.
“When you have good product, a sophisticated marketplace in the UK with lots of retailers who know what they are doing, and you add into the mix very aggressive finance offers, you have an opportunity, which is exactly what we had,” he said.
Gilder believes being a solus Ford group has helped the business through the economic downturn and puts it in a strong position today.
“When the recession hit I felt sure that whilst most manufacturers would have a difficult time, Ford would do whatever it took to stay in the business.
I was able to concentrate on customer demands, not being interrupted by half a dozen manufacturers wanting two days of my time every week. That’s not denigrating dealers who have successful multi-franchise businesses, I just chose not to go that route.”
Gilda cites Ford’s ongoing investment in research and development and the brand’s continuing domination of both the car and commercial sales charts as good indicators that he chose the right franchise.
The relationship between Peoples and Ford is strong with the recent appointment of its Edinburgh and Liverpool outlets to the new Transit Centre network. While its Bootle outlet will be one of just two pilot centres for the brand’s new top-end Ford Store retailing programme, the other being the Ford owned retail centre on London’s Edgware Road.
The Ford Store concept will eventually be introduced to large metropolitan sites big enough to display the complete car and van ranges with dedicated areas for Mustang and top-end Vignale-badged models.
“They are creating centres of excellence and forming part of that is a nice place to be; you have an influence,” Gilda said.
A strong element of Peoples’ status is the group’s levels of customer satisfaction, its dealerships topping Ford’s premier league for the last two years in succession. Customer satisfaction is key to the business but he adds that while top standards are difficult to achieve they are do-able with the right DNA.
“The people here understand the needs of the consumer and the volume of business we do means you’ve really got to be good at the job. My staff know that a customer with a complaint has instant access to me – it says so on the website, and such DNA curls through the organisation. If a customer comes to me with a complaint I guarantee to get back to them within 24 hours. I do get some emails, but with very little exception I manage to fix the issue and turn the customer back into a validator of us.”
Such communication is equally important inside the business and is based around a flat management structure where staff are kept fully informed. Gilda quotes as an example the 25th anniversary celebrations of the Liverpool business in November, in which the theme of his speech to staff was to emphasise the pride they could feel in topping customer satisfaction scores and in attracting the latest Ford retailing initiatives. Many staff have been with Peoples for a long time and Gilda is particularly proud at having just promoted to the Liverpool board a staff member who started with the business working part-time straight out of college.
Gilda takes pride in making sure no-one in the business is paid the minimum wage. Instead the entry point is Peoples Living Wage, currently set at 110% of the government’s minimum wage. A figure he aims to improve upon at the end of the year.
Training is key to the business’ success and apprenticeships an essential element.
“We made the mistake some years ago of taking out apprentice costs when we were looking for savings, not realising we were cutting off our future – we didn’t do that again.”
As a result, when the company needed to make savings to navigate the recession, Gilda emphasised to the board that staff would be the final element to be considered.
“We would make the changes needed to get to the savings target we needed, but staffing would be looked at last.”
Peoples has also benefitted from encouraging staff to move around the business.
“You’d be surprised at the number of people who want to do something different to their current role and we try to find them that route – it’s simply about knowing your staff.”
As a Scottish based group, albeit with two-thirds of profits coming from south of the border, Gilda, like many business owners, is keeping an eye on the commercial implications of the forthcoming referendum on Scottish independence, although he concedes he has no plans to switch his head office operations from Scotland to Liverpool.
Meanwhile the future looks good for the group with a strong relationship with its franchise partner, the promise of new product, with the latest generation Transit on sale from this month and the Mondeo following later in the year, and the prospect of continued strong trading.
“We’re looking to do some good strategic things with Ford, the commercial vehicle market is right up our street and there is excellent product coming. The end of January is also the end of my half year and we were 28% ahead of the same period last year – and that was our best year ever.”
Peoples Cars Fact File
MT Top 200: 71
Turnover: £185.9m
Locations: Edinburgh, Falkirk, Livingston, Liverpool ( three sites), Accrington
Brand: Ford
Established: 1983
Staff: 400
Annual sales: 15,000
