Director, David Quance, explained that he and his 3 fellow directors were until recently very “hands on” in the business. They have however now brought in a layer of experienced, middle management to take over many of the day to day responsibilities so they can concentrate on running the business as it continues to grow. With a workshop / insurance background, rather than finance, he and fellow directors, David Hayward, Simon Bennett and Mark Collis called in help from Chris Annis of LB Group Chartered Accountants at an early stage.
Mr Hayward said, “At no stage have we wanted – or needed – to borrow money. But to do that we’ve had to keep a tight rein on expenses and cash flow. The very nature of what we do means there can be a long period between doing the work for clients and actually receiving payment.” Past experience, whilst working elsewhere, had taught them that bringing in new business can often jeopardise existing contracts if not managed and resourced correctly and they were determined that would not happen at CAA. “When we win a new contract we like to have the people in place before hand so we hit the ground running. Clients don’t want to wait until we’ve trained up a new team, so having the extra staff in place and fully trained from the start is important but of course that costs,” he added.
“In order for us to continue to provide all our clients with a fast, efficient, high quality service, we must have a comprehensive of happy network of approved repairers working alongside us” commented Simon Bennett. “We are committed to maintaining the good working relationship we have built up with all our approved repairers and are therefore committed to authorise repairs and settle their invoices within agreed timescales so encouraging them to work with us”.
Any repairers looking to join the CAA Approved Repairer Network should in the first instance e-mail Mark Garnham, the Engineering and Networks Manager at
networkinfo@caaonline.co.uk or visit the company’s web-site at
www.caaonline.co.uk.
