Goodbye Owens Road Services. Hello, Owens Group

This week our sister title Commercial Motor (out on Thursday 27 August) has reported on leading South Wales haulier Owens Road Service’s rebranding, featuring new liveries, a new logo and most importantly, a new name. The Hub spoke to the team at Owens to learn a bit more about their plans for the company under its new name of the Owens Group, which will come into play on 3 September.

Operations director Ian Owen, son of founder and MD Huw Owen, told The Hub: “We feel that we’re growing and want to continue that growth while safeguarding what we’re doing already. And we think Owens Group is a little bit sexier than Owens Road Services. And we’re touching £50m plus turnover now, so we think we’re worthy of being called a group.”

While the company’s day-to-day operations will remain the same under the new title, Owens Group’s turnover will indeed be more in the region of £50m, as opposed to the £38m it listed last year under its former name. This is because a couple of other businesses – a recycling company and “a few service stations” - are being brought under the banner.

The company’s new look comes complete with a refreshed logo, which sales and relationships manager Debbie Oram said “has a modern, cleaner look”. “It’s quite similar,” she explained, “it’s just taken on a bit more of a modern twist.”

We think Owens Group is a little bit sexier than Owens Road Services. And we’re touching £50m plus turnover now, so we think we’re worthy of being called a group.

“We thought long and hard in terms of the new logo,” added Owen, “but we felt the one we had was 10 years old, we’ve certainly moved on in the last 10 years and prior to that, and I think a lot of the branding was a part of that success. Feedback from people on the roads that have seen it that we’ve got so far is very positive.”

The company has ordered 30 new Montracon box trailers for its retail operation, which are on the road already and will all be kitted out in the new livery by the end of September, all being well.

Owens has also recently put in an order for “about a dozen” SDC trailers to work on various contracts, including the new High Cube Network and the company’s Palletforce coverage.

“This is a bit of a foot in the door for SDC,” explained Owen. “We’ve ordered about a dozen at the moment as a trial to see how they run against others, and then we’ll potentially have more as part of our fleet investment going into 2016.”

Another reason behind the rebranding, said Owen, was to demonstrate that the firm has moved beyond what it’s perhaps best known for, being it’s South Wales roots and its work in steel transportation.

He said: “A lot of people think because we’re a Welsh family we only work within Wales. And yes we’re Welsh, and based in South Wales, but the depots we have are spread all over.

“And yes, we still carry steel, it accounts for about 25% of what we do. It’s still very, very important to us and we wouldn’t be without it.

“But we are very into warehousing now, which died in the recession but now seems to be rekindling. We’re also heavily involved with Palletforce, running bulk distribution with tipper work, and general haulage, which consists of many, many customers in food and drink, and a lot of retail too.”

Wanting to be known for operating in England and in Wales formed part of the company’s decision to support Welsh charity Follow Your Dreams, which also works in both countries helping children with a range of learning difficulties.

The company has put four trailers on the road in Follow Your Dreams livery, and hopes to bump this up to about a dozen in the coming months.

Its work with the charity recently prompted a visit from Welsh rugby star Mike Phillips to its Llanalli HQ, who is a patron of the charity, and also features on the charity liveries – an endearing factor which The Hub thinks mitigates his recent booting from the Welsh squad. We’ll say no more.

Ian Owen said: “It’s gone down an absolute treat. I’m so pleased that we’ve done it. Number one for the charity, to give them what they were after.

“But number two, there’s a whole new buzz about it in our whole workforce, along with our customer and supplier bases. And we have a very loyal supplier base and they want to contribute where they can too, so it’s gone down very well.”

You have to be competitive today, we’re not ignorant of that fact, because otherwise you don’t get the business.

With group activity at an all time high, Owen said the company is constantly looking to evolve, but has no particular designs in growth in specific sectors.

“I wouldn’t say we’re looking to build in a particular area,” he said. “We’ve got many irons in fires at the minute. We haven’t got a sales team, and people are coming to us because people have told them to, because of the service they get from us. And that for us is the key to what we do. We pride ourselves on service.

“You have to be competitive today, we’re not ignorant of that fact, because otherwise you don’t get the business. But at the end of the day we don’t want to work for bottom rates either, and sustainability is key to what we’re trying to do.

“So I wouldn’t say it’s one particular market we’re looking to expand into. It all depends on who calls. If it fits, we’re all over it. But if it doesn’t fit, equally, we’re not embarrassed to say it doesn’t work with what we do and we don’t think we’d do a good job.

"We want people to be proud to work for us. The company was founded by my father 45 years ago, and he’s worked so hard to get it where it is today, and it’s definitely something we want to sustain.”