Page 4 - Fedral Mogul News Collection

Bradford United News - Issue 1

How Did We Do In ’99?

he last two years have seen an CHALLEN
enormous amount of change at the
TLegrams Lane site. Three major
companies – AE Autoparts, Ferodo and
Champion – have been successfully
brought together under one roof. The To be the best parts supplier
effect has been to increase the number
of customers being serviced by the site
by ten fold.
Although AE Autoparts was then
already owned by the T & N Group, prior L D C SA L E S 19 9 7 - 20 0 0
to 1998 Bradford was responsible solely
for moving AE and Payen-branded
product. All that was to change when
Federal-Mogul acquired the businesses of
the T & N Group and, in April 1998, took
the decision to move all Ferodo and Duron
branded product onto the site.
No sooner had the dust settled on
that major movement of stock than
Federal-Mogul, hungry to increase its
portfolio in pursuit of its goal of being a
$10 billion company by 2002, had
acquired the automotive businesses of
Cooper Industries. The Cooper Group UK
included the Champion and Wagner
brands and, in June 1999, these brands FRANCE ITALY SPAIN
were also taken onto the Bradford stock GERMANY
list.
In just two years, although the actual
number of product lines has increased by
a relatively small amount, the individual 19 97 199 8 1 999 2000
business transactions have multiplied
massively – probably by as much as a
factor of 20.
The complexity of the business has
changed out of all recognition.
Key Goal
How Good Are We?

espite the extra workload and the ● ● ● ● ● Increase Customer
turmoil of having so many new
Dcustomers to service, Bradford Satisfaction.
remains one of the most successful LDCs
in Europe.
Looking at sales throughput off the
Bradford site and comparing it with sales
out of France, Germany, Italy and Spain, Key Goal
it is possible to see that Bradford is the
single biggest LDC in Europe

● ● ● ● ● Achieve Sales and
The Challenge Earnings Plan.
Is To Get Smart

n a shrinking marketplace, the
competition for share becomes ever
I more fierce. There’s always someone
waiting to pick up the business so even
the most successful operators cannot service we offer and make sure, firstly, Towards the end of last year, the
afford to become complacent. that it matches what our customers company developed a Key Goals Business
That message - concentrating on the expect of us and, secondly, that it’s as Plan which does just that. It began by
customer and what he expects from us – good as we can make it. That means asking some basic questions – what are
was the central the focus of Dick Snell’s looking at every process in the supply the key areas which most affect our
keynote address to the leadership
chain – right from the sales teams facing ability to provide a good service (and if
conference in Grand Rapids, the customer every day, to the picker in we didn’t know we put processes in place
4 Michigan, earlier this month. the warehouse who makes sure the right to enable us to find out) and, if they’re
not as good as our customers think they
What that means to Bradford
product gets packed and shipped – and
should be, then what change action do
is that we have to look hard at the
taking nothing for granted.