The Recycler Issue 301

Some of the minor brands would significantly
“benefit from licensing as the market contracts.
“
and services. A valued supplier is hard to supplant with
just a low-cost offering.
Review your portfolio - Does what you offer fit today’s
market? Does it tick all of your customer's boxes, or can
you improve? Do you focus on being the best in a narrow
market say as a single OEM specialist, or do you support
multiple brands? New car sales tend to offer separate
brands or where you see multiple brands they are usually
a connected family like Jaguar / Land Rover, Renault and
Citroen etc. The used car market typically supports
numerous brands, and you expect the dealer or garage to
have the knowledge and expertise to assist you.
Be open – Today’s customers want to trust you, and you
gain that trust by being transparent, accountable and
honest with the information you provide, the
recommendations you make and the level of service you
deliver.
Be flexible – Not every person going into a restaurant
wants the menu of the day. Your customers may well want
something a little more a la carte. Your business needs to
be flexible enough to deliver what your customer wants.
Even if that means collaborating at some level with another
provider.
Capacity – Getting your capacity right is critical for your
business. If you can make ten thousand cartridges a day
or week or month, but only sell five thousand you have too
much capacity and that costs you dearly in increased
overheads. There are plenty of examples of companies
that had grown fast when the market was expanding, but
now have too much capacity in an ongoing contracting
market and the overhead burden impacts on the
profitability.
Staffing – Do your staff have the skills to deliver the
business you want or do you take the business they can
deliver? It’s a subtle question, but an important one
because in whatever way you want to innovate your
business, your staff have to be able, capable and willing
to do it. Training, recruitment and being willing to let
people go have to be high on your business innovation
agenda.
Marketing - A sensitive topic for everyone, because the
hard copy sector typically follows the IKE (I know
everyone) marketing strategy and significantly
underinvests. A valid marketing budget will be somewhere
between four and ten percent of your turnover and will,
over time, increase your sales by considerably more.
Marketing is not a cost, but an investment in the future of
your business and should be at the heart of what you do
and be the only budget not to be squeezed.
Success is measured in your bottom line and as the
saying goes “turnover is vanity and profit is sanity.” It is
possible to grow your business, even in a contracting
market, but the growth comes from winning business from
your OEM competitors by delivering what your customers
want and need.
R
THE RECYCLER • ISSUE 301 • DECEMBER 2017
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