Succession Planning:We are very early days but succession planning is already being considered. We are working on building a sustainable business with systems strong enough that they can be replicated. We plan to hold on to all intellectual property and branding but sell the business at some stage in the future. In essence Instant Auto Blenheim will become our first franchise. We can then concentrate on building the brand in other areas. It may be that we have a model that can be replicated in its entirety or parts of it added to existing businesses. An example might be an express oil change operation attached to an established garage to increase its customer base and turn over or even combined with a drive through WoF service.
We have worked with Brian with a view to building robust systems and being able replicate them. We see franchising as part of our journey. |
We also need to understand the changing shape of our market and be aware of the shelf life of the types of vehicles we look after. It will be quite some time before mainstream motorists are using fully electric vehicles. They are expensive and don’t have the range our market requires. While there might be some very limited numbers of small town cars available in New Zealand we are a long way from an electric double cab four wheel drive ute that gets workers to the forests and tows the family boat. The average age of a New Zealand car is 13 years. If in 15 years time the majority of manufacturers are selling electric cars, and there is some agreement about what infrastructure New Zealand requires then it will still be another decade or so before they become the norm. We are not denying that the market won’t change and oil change operations will need to change quickly also but it is still some time away. Currently I can drive to Christchurch and within 5 minutes I’ve filled my cars tank again ready to return. Currently there are no electric cars that can make this trip on a charge (despite a few claims) and if they could they’d need about 8-12 hours charging time before they could attempt the return trip. I believe that a battery change out operation would be ideal, a bit like swapping your empty BBQ bottle for a full one at the garage. We need to understand that some such simple innovation could change the market much quicker than expected. There are some huge corporations investing in massive research especially now that the Chinese company SAIC are on board with R&D. No longer the domain of cheaply replicating the worlds ideas, China will be the new powerhouse for design and innovation in the motor industry inside the next 10 years.
|
