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A Lesson to be Learnt

While FleetWatch greets as good news the fact that AB Volvo is taking over where Billy Rautenbach left off, it would be remiss of us - based on market reaction, operator fears and our own experience in trying to solicit comment during the period of uncertainty - to let AB Volvo off the hook for its failure to clearly communicate with its clients that they will be OK in the long run. There is a great lesson here for all companies who may fall on hard times.

"It's shocking. We don't know what's going on. No-one is talking to us. We're totally in the dark." These are the words of Beau Papenfus, regional director of Nominated Carriers, commenting on a question posed to him by FleetWatch in early January about the effect the closure of Swedish Truck Distributors (STD) was having on his operation.

Papenfus related how he had two breakdowns in Botswana and on phoning the Germiston workshops, was told to contact Volvo in Sweden. "Do you really think they will send someone out to fix my trucks?" he asked sarcastically. "No, not really," came the reply. "So what's the point?" he asked as he put the phone down in frustration. The end result was that he got an independent to get the trucks back on the road.

"Volvo has not handled this well at all. Yes, we understand that companies can go down but we cannot understand how we can be left in the dark in terms of information. It's not the way to do business," was his ending comment.

His concerns were echoed by a major panelbeater who specialises in repairing trucks. "We've been drastically affected. We are battling to get parts and have even sourced from some of our fleet customers. There is nothing available on the cab side and we have one truck on the floor that needs a new cab. It will just have to wait - but for how long, I don’t know. We are not getting any answers from anyone. It seems the Swedes are not interested," he told FleetWatch, with the request that he remains anonymous.

Emile van der Vyfer, MD of Van Der Vyfer's Transport, is another operator who says he had been inconvenienced through not being able to source spares. "Some parts are just not available and for those that are, you have to pay cash. Transporters must run 24-hours per day and it is impossible to operate properly if you can't get parts. I just hope Sweden is going to do something about it - and fast," he told FleetWatch.

Perhaps the man who really took the bit in his teeth was Tim Driman, MD of TLD Transport who, as far back as last October, started asking for answers via a series of faxes sent to both STD and Volvo Sweden. FleetWatch has on file copies of all the faxes sent. This is an extract from the first fax Driman sent to Mr Jan Erik in Sweden. It was dated October 25, 1999.

We have a local maintenance contract in place for our Volvos and we suspect that STD is not using the correct type or sometimes even used spares on vehicles. We can go on and on citing various problems but in brief, we now say that Volvo’s argument with Mr Billy Rautenbach of STD South Africa is impacting negatively on all Volvo owners in South Africa. As much as we understand that the entire South African take-off figures on Volvo’s world-wide scale is minimal, we believe that Volvo has a moral and political responsibility to provide Volvo users with reliable backup. This is not the case and in fact, the vehicles "standing" in South Africa due to this lack of backup are only serving to harm an already beleaguered industry. Can you please help or do we turn to other vehicle manufacturers for help?

With no satisfactory answers forthcoming from this and subsequent faxes, a frustrated Driman eventually sent a letter to the South African Minister of Transport, Dullah Omar as well as to the Minister of Trade and Industry Alex Irwin, asking them to intervene.

Rumours abounded

Of course, rumours surrounding the viability and long term sustainability of Swedish Truck Distributors have floated around the industry for many years. As far back as June 1997, FleetWatch carried an exclusive interview with Nils Arthur, then president of Volvo Truck Corporation, in which we pressed for confirmation or denial of the rumours that Volvo Sweden would be taking over the southern African operation from Billy Rautenbach. This was his answer - which we published at the time:

"If there are rumours about us being unhappy with what STD is doing, these have no foundation of truth. We are extremely happy with the performance of STD and have no intention of taking over the distributorship. The only ambition we have is to cement the strong position we have in the market and to improve it through close collaboration with STD." That was in June 1997.

This strong statement from the president of Volvo Truck Corporation did serve to quell the rumours and left STD in the clear - for a while. FleetWatch later addressed another problem on a visit to the assembly plant in Gaborone and it revolved around STD not reporting truck sales through a body like Naamsa. FleetWatch's stance, carried in the April 1988 edition of the magazine, was that it could no longer rely on unaudited or unverified sales figures for fear of misguiding our readers.

Of course, some great sales had taken place up to then, a most notable one being 150 FH12's to Alex Carriers and another great order to Boldtrans. And that was aside from the smaller orders to operators all over the country. Volvo had been cooking on sales. But at what price? Something was not right - although we were hoping that everything was. We liked Volvo…

However, on May 28^th, 1999, FleetWatch switched its focus to Volvo in Sweden and I wrote a letter to Graham Thomson, who had just been appointed general manager of Volvo Trucks and Buses in the STD organisation. At that time, Wheels of Africa was hitting some heavy bumps. I quote an extract from the letter:

Throughout the recent saga involving Wheels of Africa, Volvo Sweden has been conspicuous by its absence of comment either of support or commitment to either its local distributor, Wheels of Africa, or to the many customers it has in this region. It is not good enough for Volvo management to use Wheels of Africa to pass on its messages to the market. What does Volvo Sweden say? What is it's commitment - financial or other? Given the current circumstances, FleetWatch owes it to its readers to press for such a statement and I use this letter to solicit such a statement from Sweden - either via your good selves or directly to the head-office of Volvo.

I was given the assurance from Thomson that the letter would be presented to the Swedes and a reply would be forthcoming. The reply never came and the feeling of pending doom deepened.

Wheels fell off

The months passed and then the wheels fell off totally - and here is where we have a huge gripe. When STD went into liquidation, AB Volvo should have immediately put in place an action plan to reassure clients that they would be OK. Instead, clients were left in the dark as to what their futures would be.

I can confirm this failure to communicate with the market for I too tried to get comment but was, in the beginning, only able to get hold of people like switchboard operators - at Hyundai 'nogal' - workshop mechanics and so on. I eventually got a response after phoning Sweden and speaking to the secretary of Leif Johansson, president and CEO of AB Volvo, telling her that Volvo was dropping its clients in this country and that I needed to speak to Johansson to get some clarity on Volvo's future intentions.

Later that day I got a call from Mats Edenburg, director of press relations for AB Volvo in Sweden who, unfortunately, admitted he could not tell me much. I put it to him that customers were unhappy and that the way things were being communicated to the customer base left a lot to be desired. "I know what you mean," was his answer and assured me he would try get more concrete details.

To his credit, although he could never tell me anything new, Edenburg stayed in regular touch over the next week or two until that call came through saying that Lennart Jeansson, executive vice president and deputy CEO of AB Volvo, was in South Africa and was willing to be interviewed by FleetWatch. Thus the story on page 26.

The point is, while we welcome the news that AB Volvo is coming here in full force, we would like to point out that the lead-up to this good news could have been handled so much more professionally. Let me illustrate:

Rules of Risk Communication

The Environmental Protection Agency in the USA has issued a document titled the 'Seven cardinal Rules of Risk Communication'. The EPA admits there is no easy prescription for successful risk communication. However, those who have studied and participated in debates about risk generally agree on seven cardinal rules. They are:

(1) Accept and involve the public as a legitimate partner; (2) Plan carefully and evaluate your efforts; (3) Listen to the public’s specific concerns; (4) Be honest, frank and open; (5) Co-ordinate and collaborate with other credible sources; (6) Meet the needs of the media (7) Speak clearly and with compassion

According to the EPA, although many of the rules may seem obvious, they are continually and consistently violated in practice. I put forward that while the news carried in the Jeansson interview in this issue is most welcome, AB Volvo violated each one of these rules in dealing with the STD saga in South Africa.

The bottom line is that in the main, clients had to run after Volvo whereas it should have been the other way round. After all, it wasn't the customers who had dropped Volvo in the mess. It was the other way round. So hey Volvo - it’s great that you're going get things right but please will you communicate with the market better in the future.

That said and out the way, from all of us at FleetWatch, we extend a warm welcome to AB Volvo and wish you all the best in the future! And look, we're not too bad. Souf Efrikens are eggsheley quite a lekker bunch of okes. And we smaak your truks, hey!

Footnote: In the absence of something like a Crisis Hot-Line from Volvo, we invite any operator who is really battling with a problem to fax or e-mail his/her problem to FleetWatch offices and we will endeavour to get the query, gripe or whatever to the right person in the Volvo organisation.