___________________________________________________________________________________________ Bond International
A large part of this growth and success was down to improving our service levels. This industry is service-driven, and same-day delivery has become fundamental for sales
knew would fit the business and its model. Together, we quickly identified areas of expansion and established a plan to execute our ideas. We created a level of highly skilled senior management to sit under the Board, and this, coupled with a fantastic team of employees throughout the whole business, gave us the structure and strength that we needed to grow. In 2018, our turnover was £ 162 million, but in 2024, this figure grew to £ 417 million, highlighting that our plan was successful despite challenges like the Covid-19 pandemic and shipping delays.“ A large part of this growth and success was down to improving our service levels,” he notes.“ This industry is service-driven, and same-day delivery has become fundamental for sales. After identifying areas of the country where we could gain by providing same-day service, we obtained depots in these regions and the increase in sales naturally followed. By securing high service levels, we’ ve strengthened our reputation in the industry and been able to secure major contracts with large customers and manufacturers.”
The key to success
On the topic of opening new depots, we’ re keen to understand more about what this process entails.“ We have a method of understanding the effect of opening a depot in any area by calculating the market share gains and plotting that against the initial cost of the depot,” Charlie explains.“ It’ s important to be located near highly populated towns and cities as the gains are higher in these areas. Our new depot in St Helens, for instance, is midway between Manchester and Liverpool, while our Bathgate site is central to both Edinburgh and Glasgow. Both sites in St Helens and Bathgate provided us with the highest return on investment in the tests we ran and are proving successful in the market so far.”
As Charlie points out, customer service is key to Bond’ s success, and by ensuring a seamless and positive experience, the business can secure repeat business.“ The two most important points for our customers are availability of stock and delivery reliability,” he states.“ We have over two million tires in stock at any time and our customers even comment that if Bond does not have the tire in stock, then nobody in the UK does. Our team of 45 customer service agents are based at our head office in Pocklington and do a fantastic job of looking after our customer base.”
Acquisitions have also played a key part in Bond’ s recent expansion, enabling the
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