Taunton haulage company's success story - and lessons to learn (From Bridgwater Mercury)

Taunton haulage company's success story - and lessons to learn

12:10pm Monday 19th January 2009

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MODERN society would collapse without our road haulage transport. The service transport companies connects our producers with us, the consumers so if that chain was broken we wouldn’t get the food, drink, medicines, all the day-to-day items we need for everyday life to continue as we know and want it.

While this business goes on, 24 hours a day, all year long, we tend to take it all for granted but Taunton author Bob Holder gives us an insight in his latest book Thinking About Transport – Lessons from Langdons.

The pivotal date for the book on the Walford Cross and Bridgwater company is March 25, 1977 when eight of the firm’s prime movers – the tractors which pull the load – and 28 of its trailers were auctioned; eleven years before the sale Langdons had owned only two roadworthy prime movers and trailers, while eleven years after the sale it owned 200 prime movers, operating in six depots with an annual turnover of £50million, enjoying one of the highest profit margins in the industry.

The book is the story of how this happened and is a colourful insight into a local business for any reader. At the end of each chapter is a short list of bullet pints to draw attention to the lessons which can be learned from the events in the preceding pages. So this also makes the book invaluable for those in business, coming from the author who has also written ‘Thinking About Management’.

An earlier book, Taunton Cider and Langdons, was published in 2000 and described how the two companies had grown together to become major employers in Somerset – Langdons were the contractors who made up to 40 deliveries a day for the cider makers.

It was at that crucial time of the sale of the lorries when a management buy-out saved the loss-making Langdons, to transform it into the country’s most efficient transport company.

The company’s Chillnet operation is now the leading national brand in shared-user distribution of temperature controlled goods and in the book Holder recalls not just what happened but also now such a result was achieved.

Many of the lessons are applicable to all businesses and business people and not just to those who operate transport or store goods, and they could profit by adopting the practices which have proved beneficial and avoid the mistakes which have proved costly.

“Nothing in the business world ever stands still,” he warns, and he includes general advice about using bankers, getting advice, not delegating essential items, down to simple things like stretch-wrapping loads on pallets! “Grasp a business opportunity but do not over-trade,” he says.

This is a story of people re-mortgaging their homes, putting their whole lives on the line to do something they believe in, refinancing the company, how it expanded, how it is run, how to look after staff and equipment, and finally how the company was acquired by the Nagel Group.

Holder concludes: “Whatever the future holds it appears that in accepting the offer from Nagel, the shareholders in Langdons may have forgone a higher price for their shares.

But they have achieved a secure future for those who have helped them turn the company into the most efficient operator of temperature controlled transport and distributions services within the UK.”

He also adds in the bullet points at the end of the last chapter: “Never forget those who have loyally served your company”.

Read this book and be inspired, whether you have your own company, are thinking of setting one up or simply want to read about a local firm which almost went to the wall but then went to great success, and be inspired by the people involved.

Thinking About Transport – Lessons from Langdons, by R.W.Holder, published by Phillimore, £15.99.

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