New HQ for Crown

HSS meets Crown Lift Trucks UK managing director, Simon Emery as the company announces its move to a large and impressive new UK head office

Crown Lift Trucks recently announced the opening of its new UK head office in Basingstoke. The 37,000 sq ft building, adjacent to the main A33 Reading Road, will serve as a technical and sales support centre for the south of England in addition to being the UK's new headquarters. Crown has also further developed its Warrington technical and sales support centre.

Crown Lift Trucks UK managing director, Simon Emery says: "We've been here since the Diamond Jubilee weekend.

We moved in over the bank holiday as we wanted time to bed ourselves in. We closed three leased properties and we bought this new bigger facility." The Basingstoke premises bring together the South of England sales and service operations under one roof as well as housing all UK finance and HR functions.

A workshop and solvent free paint-shop will ensure customer truck refurbishments and modifications are carried out to the highest standards while new truck preparation facilities will allow a final inspection prior to delivery of trucks to site.

In addition, a purpose built customer demonstration arena has been created to showcase the latest new products being launched by Crown.

Investment in the UK operation is part of an overall expansion plan which will see Crown's presence across Europe continue to grow. During 2012, Crown announced the opening of a new directly owned and operated facility in Madrid, Spain and a new direct operation opened in Austria.

Parts support for the UK has historically been provided by Crown's Munich office and this will continue. The system allows for a part to be in an engineer's van by 7.00am providing it is ordered by 3.00pm the previous day in the UK.

Simon sees clear benefits for customers in Crown's new premises.

"Communication around the business is better. Secondly when customers come here, we can show people the demo area, the workshop, we have very good meeting rooms, there is a lot more going on." The growth in premises reflects business growth for Crown, and Simon is very confident about the UK market.

"We have had a very busy year. Last year we grew 30% and year before we grew 20%. This year will be double digit as well.

The market has held up, while European markets have been jittery, the UK has been steady. Capital equipment is one of the first things that get cut when the economy slows and the steady sales of MHE over the last few years shows that enough companies are confident and doing well.

"Our forte is in blue chip customers and retail, we do a lot of multichannel. Three of the four biggest online retailers are Crown customers." Simon puts Crown's success, in part, down to the use of its fleet management system InfoLink and says that IMHX will see a new version of the software, with significant upgrades. The latest evolution will include greater battery monitoring ability and effectively allow the user to manage batteries within InfoLink, saving them from buying a separate proprietary system.

"We have a lot of customers running InfoLink," says Simon. "They recognise, as much as it is about the trucks, it is also about managing and utilising the fleet.

One of the benefits for Crown in the recession is that it has made people far more aware of maximising return from MHE. The days of having trucks that sit around under-utilised are gone." Hand-in-hand with this trend, Crown has seen huge growth in short term rental in the last two years, as corporates cover their core needs with contract trucks and increasingly meet peak demand with rentals.

Simon continues: "We have got 1,400 trucks on short term rental, utilisation is through the roof, and it has been for 18 months. Every time we think it will turn down, it kicks on again. We added 150 new trucks to our fleet last year, and are planning to do more this year."