From the motor retail front line, five dealer group leaders share some advice on growing through acquisitions:

Recognise your strengths

Mark Robinson, managing director, Vantage Motor Group: “We would stop being a medium-sized group if I had to put in another tier of management. I’m a hands-on retailer and I don’t think I’d be able to maintain the same level of control, with the same level of strategic direction.”

 

Prepare

Glenn Obee, chairman, Motorline Group: “Throughout the last five or six years, we have refined an internal team, which we call our ‘countdown team’, which is solely focused on acquisitions and getting them bedded in. From the point of announcing that we are going to do something, we meet every week to discuss it all, whether that’s IT, signage, furniture, people, do’s and don’ts – we talk about the whole agenda and we’ve got it to, I wouldn’t say a fine art, but a successful form for us. If you haven’t got that structure when growing as fast as we have it could be chaos.”

 

Share your expectations

Steve Turney, managing director, Delgarth Motor Company:  “We hadn’t really been doing this (planning and forecasting) as well as we should have – it was a more an ‘I know what’s going on’ mindset for me, rather than sharing my views with the sales managers, making everyone responsible for their own department. Now we have five sites, I can’t run the business alone and need people to deliver on the goals.”

Reinvest

Clive Brook, managing director, Clive Brook Volvo: “I have no desire to own a yacht in Cyprus. The money we generate will be put back into the business. I want to see it grow.”

 

 

Keep it lean

Steven Eagell, managing director, Steven Eagell Toyota: “We have centralised the business as much as we possibly can, we see ourselves as one dealership with 11 locations rather than 11 separate dealerships.”