Matt Lawrenson - October Business Update

Listen to this week's podcast, Matt Lawrenson provides the monthly business update. Although truck sales are going through a tough period, the parts and service departments are doing well!

Transcript

Hi Everyone

It’s been a busy few weeks since my last podcast, the time in-between has just flown by. However I was fortunate enough to spend a long weekend in Spain at the beginning of the month where I took full advantage of the late summer sun. I do enjoy the odd beer or two by the pool and I suspect a number of you will be in a similar position during the half term holidays this month. Winter is coming, according to Jon Snow, and about this time every year he is right. But not yet. Before it does, we get to enjoy the changing colours of autumn and the odd flash of sunshine to brighten up what are generally dull days at this time of year. 

Autumn also signals the beginning of a more busy period for our business after the quieter summer months. Firstly, the lead up to Christmas starts in October which means more trucks covering more miles on our roads and secondly the winter period is the busiest time of the year for our workshops and parts departments.

September was the end of the first quarter of our new financial year and provides an important benchmark for both business performance and outlook. Overall, I have been pleased with the results, importantly we are slightly ahead of where we planned to be at this stage but there remain some concerning trends which started at the beginning of 2024 which look set to continue for the remainder of this year at least. 

The biggest challenge we face is a UK truck market where new registrations are less than last year and customer confidence is low. This is not helped by the uncertainty surrounding the October budget and the gloomy rhetoric coming from the Government. It’s also no secret that DAF have suffered some product problems this year and so our truck sales departments have faced an uphill battle to secure orders and to sell stock trucks. There is some good news, I can see improving trends with our unsold stock and the bodybuilder backlogs are easing but we still have a huge task ahead of us to achieve the stock and work in progress targets I set for the business this year. 

Service and Parts continue to perform well, as do our bodyshop operations. We are selling more labour hours than we did this time last year but parts sales are slightly down which is reflective of the UK parts market as a whole. 

I have met with some major fleet customers in recent weeks and the feedback on the service levels they receive from our dealerships around the country is generally positive. Not only is this great to hear when you are sat in front of the CEO of a National Fleet Operator, it is also incredibly important to our ongoing success as a business. The effort and support you each provide day to day means customers stay loyal to DAF and loyal to Motus Commercials, so thank you!

That’s it for me other than to inform you that Derby are holding their own in the Championship and playing good football. Hull and Stoke are next on our fixture list so let’s see who gets the bragging rights over the next couple of weeks!

I look forward to catching up on my Dealer visits.

See you soon.

Matt