With Brexit creating an uncertain landscape, Daniel Searle spoke to UK manufacturers about current and future opportunities. He visited Street Crane, a company planning large-scale growth.

There are big changes afoot at Street Crane—but the company is overseeing a smooth transition from one era to the next. Andrew Pimblett stepped down as managing director earlier this year after 28 years in the role and 49 years with the company. A big change, of course—but part of a planned succession, with Pimblett stepping down on his 65th birthday and Gus Zona, who has been with Street Crane in two spells since 1988, taking on the role.

Pimblett is still very much an active member of the company, as he told Hoist during a visit to the company’s headquarters at Chapel-enle- Frith in Derbyshire, UK. Now working three days, he is still undertaking some of the travel required to help projects over the line and to optimise project timelines, he says.

That’s not the only change underway at the company—as sales director Chris Lindley-Smith mentioned during our tour of the production facilities, that the company has “ambitious plans” with the aim of growing by 40% over the next five years.

To put that growth into context, the Street group of companies currently has a turnover of around £70m, says Lindley-Smith, with a team of 200 staff at Street Crane and a further 130 at service provider Street CraneXpress and SCX Special Projects, which specialises in customised, engineering solutions. Street sells complete cranes primarily in the UK market, where the relatively short distances make shipping entire cranes logistically viable. The company’s UK sales account for at least 40% of the domestic market, says Pimblett—the downside to having such a large market share is that further UK market growth is getting tougher.

Therefore, the main opportunity for the targeted growth is through the company’s distributors outside the UK—around 75% of current business is done through these crane companies, says Pimblett. Street Crane’s long term business model has been to develop an innovative and comprehensive range of hoists and crane components, which it sells as crane kits to independent crane manufacturers containing everything required other than the girders. Crane companies worldwide buy the hoist, end carriages, electrical panels and drives in capacities from 1t to 250t. Kits up to 25t are sold as a “plug and play” with no electrical know-how required to build a crane, explains Lindley-Smith.

The company differentiates itself to distributors by ensuring it has a range of cranes that can rival any technology on the market. “We’re all about product development, product development and more product development,” says Pimblett, “Most years we invest a sum equivalent to more than half of our profit into innovation, and about one in 20 of our staff work exclusively on designing new products.”

The result is a product range that enables independent crane manufacturers to compete with the big players, explains Pimblett. “Product development is the main driver of business, and one of the key things that distributors like about us. We can provide a solution for every crane and hoist application, usually with unique safety and performance features.”

This approach is backed by the shareholders of Street Crane; the company is privately-owned and the owners understand the need for long term investment decisions in the crane industry, explains Pimblett. For this business model to work, it’s crucial to maintain strong relationships with all of its distributors.

“Our distributors are effectively our sales network,” says Zona. “One of our key differentials is that we will help them as much or as little as each one wants. In most cases we won’t sell directly into any markets where we have a distributor, so they aren’t competing against us for cranes, service or parts.”

“We can offer advice to distributors, as we have learnt a lot of lessons over the years,” says Pimblett. “For example, in the past we have taught companies how to build box beams rather than just I-beams, and recently we have advised a group of our partners about smart job costing systems.”

NEW FRONTIERS

The company’s aim to grow further has been aided by recent movements in the crane industry.

“There have been changes in the market, with companies acquiring others and changing ownership, that have created uncertainty amongst buyers, and that creates opportunities,” says Pimblett.

“Currently, the single biggest opportunity for us is in the USA market,” says Zona. “People are spending money. It’s not always easy for distributors to change their supplier—but they are motivated to change because we do not compete with them and it makes strategic sense to work with us.”

In the US, Street Crane runs a warehouse in Houston, Texas that houses around $2m of parts, overseen by two permanent sales staff and a technical expert. The company is not only focused on the States, though. “Our biggest market last year was China,”

says Pimblett. “And we’re in almost every country worldwide apart from Japan. One of my first sales missions I went on for Street Crane was to what was then Burma, and we’re now starting to see interest from Myanmar.

“We’ve worked very hard to establish ourselves in Europe, and we have a distributor in almost every country. It’s an old market, with long-standing relationships, but I am delighted to say we were 46% above budget last year.”

Zona notes that the Middle East might be the company’s most successful market overall, thanks to the large number of cranes sold for smelting operations. “But we go wherever the needs are,” he says, before noting the importance of growing at a steady rate. “We want to make sure we keep our relationships strong with our existing distributors, as well as working with new ones.”

There are big changes afoot at Street Crane