The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Fear for future of farm machinery dealerships
THE FUTURE of agricultural machinery dealerships is at risk unless school-leavers can be attracted to the sector.
That was the view forcefully put by Chris Reekie, managing director of the Cupar-based Reekie Group Ltd, during a debate at the British Agricultural and Garden Machinery Association (Bagma) conference in Perth.
“We need a totally unified approach to bringing in youngsters to work in our businesses. They see it as a dirty job working in muddy farmyards, so it is up to us to persuade them that there is a good career to be had.
“Farmers don’t realise that, unless we can attract young people now, there may not be anyone to service their vehicles in the future.”
Mark Weatherhead — a machinery dealer from Hertfordshire, and Bagma vice-president — said he had written to all the secondary schools surrounding his three branches offering to share information about career opportunities but had not received a single reply.
He also pointed to management trainees dealerships.
Another delegate said: “I think the problem is the mindset that anyone not going for a degree of some sort is ‘thick’. That couldn’t be further from the truth because we are looking for people with outstanding technical expertise,”
Indeed a new word has been coined, with employers now looking for ‘mechatronics’ — a combination of skilled mechanic and electronics expert.
Machinery dealers have other concerns the need for in machinery beyond finding skilled employees. There are moves afoot to have fewer but larger dealerships, with minimum turnovers of £20 million for agricultural machinery and £2m for turfcare and garden machinery outlets.
Clearly this would mean a loss of local dealerships but, in a round table discussion, the dealers were unanimous that the local connection was much valued by customers.
The ordering of urgently required spare parts from some manufacturers, notably John Deere, could now be completed by farmers on-line, but this did not negate the need for local expertise.
“Dealers need to be there and not too far from the farm,” said one contributor.
“Customers need service and then more service,” said another.
A common theme was that the relationship with manufacturers had to be very strong if businesses were to succeed, but it was clear this was not always the case.
Bagma members had taken part in a pan-European survey aimed at finding how highly dealers rated the tractor manufacturers they worked with.
In the UK section JCB came top of the poll, with John Deere and Claas joint second.
The bottom position was taken by Same and then New Holland.
On a European basis the same two manufacturers were at the bottom, with Fendt and then Claas being at the top.
Revealing the results, Bagma chief executive Keith Christian said some of the lower ratings would be due to dealer dissatisfaction with some fairly fundamental changes which had been imposed on them.
When it came to expressing views on the reliability of the tractors, Mr Christian said the differences were quite small but Deutz and Massey-Ferguson had the highest scores and McCormick and Claas the lowest.
Other concerns included the speed of reimbursement of warranty claims and the availability of finance.
European legislation was also posing a problem, with competition law dictating that the all-important electronic diagnostic equipment for farm machinery must be made widely available and not kept within the dealer network.
The turfcare and garden machinery sector is an important part of the Bagma membership and has its own problems.
Remarkably, only 7% of all domestic lawn mowers sold in the UK are bought at servicing dealers. The balance are purchased at supermarkets, garden centres or on-line, according to Stihl UK managing director Robin Lennie.
The position in Continental Europe is starkly different, with 53% bought through dealers.
The UK situation is worrying because, although sales through dealerships are dropping, customers still expect excellent servicing and spares facilities. This required investment which in some cases was hard to justify.