The highs and lows of Contract Hire

• Tags:
• Croft Technology

Posted by Phil Renton on June 30, 2009 5:57 PM

Is your company firmly embedded in the world of Contract Hire to procure vehicles for your business?

If so, prepare to be bitten on the rear end! For as long as I can remember Croft has used Contract Hire as a means to source all sorts of vehicles as there are some sound reasons to do so.

The obvious reasons are that your company does not have to manage the risk of residual value deviations, maintenance cost arguments are not your problem and in our case, it allows us not to have a full time Fleet Manager.

Enter stage left the quotations for our batch of cars due to be replaced in September. I wish the lady who handles renewals within Croft, Margaret Welsh, had said "put your tin hat on" before giving me the bad news. A like for like quote for a Mazda 6 over a three year term, with no increase in the list price, resulted in a £104 per month increase. And before my heart started to beat normally again this good lady followed up with "and there is a 3% list price increase on the way as well."

I am trying to come to terms with what the Contract Hire companies are trying to achieve with this move. Is it to recover from the horrible losses they must have been hit with because of the unpredicted drop in residual values, particularly over the last 12 months? Surely they can't be expecting these values to drop even further at the same alarming rate over the next three years!

Of course, if the price leasing companies get when they send "end of term cars" to auction is some £3,000 or so down from the book value they would like to achieve then surely this is compensated by the current list price being discounted by a similar amount.

Where is this leading to for our company? Have we hit the point where, during this current turbulent time, we revert to outright purchase? There are deals to be done however a strict and tough write down policy needs to be in place and provisions for remedial repairs and servicing costs need to be considered to ensure the profit and loss account isn't hit with black holes.

However these things are trivial compared to the return of the ding dong battles that will take place between Margaret and the service outlets we will use over why they are charging us for brake dust cleaner and who asked them to charge us to fill up the washer bottle with expensive windscreen washer fluid!!!!

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Keep it simple to take pain out of pensions

• Tags:
• pensions
• Pensions Bill
• retirement

Posted by Jez Davison on June 23, 2009 1:22 PM

THE pensions crisis is a huge millstone around the neck of public finances - and the private sector will be next to feel the pain.

From 2012 the Government's new Pensions Bill comes into force and will require employers to make a 3% financial contribution to pension schemes for staff earning between £5,035 and £33,540.

Continue reading "Keep it simple to take pain out of pensions " »

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Outlook's bright - but recession is still here

• Tags:
• Corus
• economy
• recession
• recovery

Posted by Jez Davison on June 23, 2009 1:22 PM

FORGET the feel-good stories, the recession is not yet over for businesses.

A raft of positive data has lifted some of the gloom surrounding the economy - but try telling that to Corus and other firms still mired in the fog.

Continue reading "Outlook's bright - but recession is still here " »

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The must-have gadget of the summer or is it all hype?

Posted by Phil Renton on June 19, 2009 9:15 AM

So, the big day has arrived. It has already been labelled the must-have gadget of the summer and it goes on sale across the UK today.

The eagerly anticipated Apple iPhone 3G S looks the same as the 3G version launched last year but Apple say that this version is bigger, faster and has better features. But is it worth the additional cost and the extended contracts needed to get your hands on it?

Aesthetically the iPhone 3GS looks the same as its predecessor - the same 3.5in touch-screen, the same glossy piano-black finish, the same minimalist design. The only real change is the coating used on the screen - the display on the iPhone 3GS is oleophobic, meaning it does a better job of repelling greasy fingerprints and smears, and is more easily wiped clean.

The biggest changes are the hardware and software used. It is bigger - now coming in 16GB and 32GB sizes - doubling the previous memory capacity. It has also introduced picture messaging, a video camera and an upgraded 3 megapixel camera.

There are also new features - voice control, tethering, Bluetooth, a landscape keyboard - a lot of the previous niggles have really been tidied up in this new version.

However, anyone with an iPhone or iPod Touch can upgrade their software to version 3.0 - allowing people who have already invested in an iPhone to take advantage of the new software and features.

I would advise anyone to get an iPhone - I have had one for some time and it is a fantastic tool, both socially and for business - but in my opinion the new version isn't different enough to justify going out and buying it if you are already tied into a contract.

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Olympic Lessons

• Tags:
• Olympics Chris Cook

Posted by Matthew Rippon on June 16, 2009 11:43 AM

At the Northumbria University Sports Dinner last night, the address was given by Chris Cook, a Northumbria University graduate and a member of the record breaking British swimming team at last year's Olympics.

The address was short. Chris wanted to share with us some of the key lessons he had learnt during his competitive career, in the hope that they may be of use to us in sport or in business. Now, I'm not a great fan of the Olympics. The national obsession once every four years with five a side knitting or underwater judo just because there's a South African competing for us whose mother lived in Peckham as a teenager a bit much to take, particularly when these sports are roundly ignored by the general public for much of the next 3 years until the next Olympiad approaches.

Now, as everyone knows, I am not a cynical person, but I couldn't help let out a gentle sigh as Chris set out his stall. I was wrong. Not only were the lessons highlighted by Chris of direct application to the numerous young sportsmen and women in the hall, they were of equal relevance to their peers who are in the process of trying to start a career or go into business for themselves. I didn't have a pen on me; I'm doing this from memory. So some of the lessons have passed through my sieve-like already. But these are the ones I remember now.

You've got to have a dream and you've got to hold on to it. You'll understand why, when Chris said this, I was thinking I was in for a yawn-fest. But when he explained the lesson, I realised he was absolutely right. A vision of what you want to accomplish is vital in starting a career or a new business. It doesn't matter whether you want to set the world alight or whether you simply want an occupation that stimulates you and makes you look forward to going into work. Without this, you have no incentive to progress.

You have to be prepared to fail. Pushing yourself to the limit means that you are bound to have setbacks. It's how you respond to them that is the indicator of your long term success. If you never experience setbacks, you are, as Sir Alan described Howard Ebison, a steady eddie. Not that there's anything wrong in that. You'll just never quite realise your true potential. If you fail initially but you persist, you exhibit one of the key traits of a serial entrepreneur, particularly if that persistence is coupled with an 'I'll show you' attitude.

You have to focus on the next step. Chris was convinced that anything is achievable if you can break it down into small enough chunks. There's the classic cricket story of Derek Randall, trying to bat all day with Mike Brearley I think, to save a test match in the 70s. They were breaking each session down into 15 minute chunks. After an especially difficult over faced by his teammate, Randall walked down the wicket and offered these words of encouragement: "Come on Skip, in 5 minutes it'll be 15 minutes until tea". That is something successful sportsmen and women have in common with successful entrepreneurs: the ability to be entirely focussed for a short period of time on what lies immediately in front of them, and to put it out of their minds when the moment passes.

Never compromise on quality. Chris suggested that at the moment, it's easy to find excuses. Absence of facilities, no budget, no time. A champion may rationalise his choices but he never compromises on quality. In other words, if you can't afford what you want, work out what you need and prioritise that. It's something that start up businesses face on a daily basis. It's also a lesson that many in professional and business support services could do well to heed. Deliver an excellent service to your client and keep its needs as your key objective. Your own success depends upon it.

Keep it simple. Chris said that he swam best when all he thought about was swimming two lengths of the pool as fast as he could. He put everything else to the back of his mind. It reminded me of the Bill Shankly quote: "football is a simple game made complicated by idiots" and of the Nike strap line: "just do it". Or as John Daly put it: "grip it and rip it". I remember playing the course at Hunstanton Golf Club (where I was a member years ago) in gross 76, to win the Club Cup with a net 64 I think. I was a poor student at the time and had been cooking breakfast for my Mum's B&B guests that morning. I was half asleep when we teed off and all I could think about was where I was going to hit the ball. It was the best golf I have ever played. When my playing partner said to me at the 18th tee "you know, you could win this", I hit my drive into the beach huts and narrowly escaped with a double bogey 6. The only thing is, because I was so sleepy, I hardly remember any of the shots I played. But I think there's something in this and in business, I try to follow Warren Buffet's philosophy. He has a rule that he will never invest in anything he doesn't understand. It is, at its heart, exactly the same message. What you're doing might not be simple to other people, but if it's simple to you, don't try and complicate it by drawing in additional and unnecessary factors.

There were some other lessons now that I'm struggling to remember, and time is pressing sadly. I'll post them if they occur to me (typically this happens when a computer is very far from my reach, unfortunately). But in five minutes Chris Cook covered more than many a management consultant teaches in half a day. So when he hangs up his goggles for the final time, I suspect a career in motivational speaking may be open to him.

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Carving a fair living

• Tags:
• COPABU
• jacaranda
• sederera
• Shared Interest Foundation
• wood carving

Posted by Andrea Wilkinson on June 16, 2009 9:23 AM

Today Joan and I are hopping on a local bus and heading into the heart of Rwanda to visit COPABU (Coopertive du Producteurs Artisans de Butare). This is the final organisation that we will visit during this evaluation trip and it sounds like they have really taken the training on board.

The group is the first to put into action the environmental training in particular. In April this year the cooperative planted 5,000 jacaranda and sederera trees in their community. The declining tree population is a great concern to this group as they rely on it to make an income. They specialise in wood carving and it is becoming increasingly difficult to source the raw materials.

So we are off to meet with Annonsiate Nyiramisage, the cooperative leader, to visit their tree nursery and record their story as a Shared Interest Foundation case study for others to learn from.

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Cards from Africa

• Tags:
• Cards from Africa
• genocide
• Shared Interest Foundation

Posted by Andrea Wilkinson on June 15, 2009 3:47 PM

Well after a long day yesterday - 12 hours of report writing and working through baselines, evaluation forms and training reports - I was more than happy to be out and about visiting producers again today.

We set off bright and early, around 8am to visit the first group of the day, Cards from Africa. I mentioned this group on my blogs from my last trip in January this year. I couldn't wait to meet again with Arthur, the manager to see how they had progressed over the last six months and to check out their new designs. I was not disappointed.

Arthur got chairs for Joan and me and we sat outside under a tree, sheltering from the intense heat of the African sun to hear about how they are doing.

Arthur was pleased that we were visiting during their busy season so we could see the organisation and production line at full throttle. People were busy everywhere we looked, soaking recycled paper to make the card, dying the materials and then finally making the designs.

The room was buzzing and this is an excellent example of fair trade at its finest.

All of the workers at Cards from Africa are genocide survivors and on top of that they are all from orphan headed households.

Arthur told us how much the training meant to him and his organisation.

Steven Kagarama (another employee that attended) said: "I learnt how to gather information on our workers, for example whose children go to school and whose do not. This information is important as it will provide us with knowledge about how we can better assist our workers; understand the challenges they are going through.

"The most important thing for me was that I learnt the practical implementation of the information provided and skills taught and how to bring this into the business. This was very interesting for me."

We also met with Rachel, the lady we carried out a Shared Interest Foundation case study on in January. She is doing very well and was happy to hear that we had shared her story. She is extremely busy just now working on a big order and says that she likes working at Cards from Africa as she gets to learn new things and spend her days among friends.

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