A company profile of Britannia Squab.

When you approach Britannia Squab by car you have a vague feeling of being in the wrong place.  After 30 years or so of visiting moving companies I figure I have a reasonably acute sense of what to expect: 1960s industrial estate, parking amid a forest of wooden boxes overflowing from a crowded warehouse, vans jostling for space in a cramped yard, and a trip immediately after the visit to the tyre depot to have the nails removed from my new Dunlops. Oh yes, I’ve been there before.  But Emlyn Evans’ Squab is different.

The sat nav gives you a clue as you approach.  It tells you there is 400 yards to go but you are still out in the countryside: corn fields as far as the eye can see.  Then all becomes clear: Squab Hall is a farm*.

In fact Emlyn’s family has been farming for many years.  Until the mid 1980s all was well but it was about then that margins started to fall and the family had to find a different use for the land.  Already the farm had buildings that with a little work could be converted to stores and it had land for expansion.  So storage of some kind was an obvious choice, but not HHG storage, not in the beginning anyway. In 1998 Emlyn’s brother, Les, decided that the future was in document storage and bought a franchise for Box-it^® a document storage and records management company formed in 1986.  The brothers have rarely looked back since.  Today the company holds circa 200,000 document storage boxes and the number continues to increase every year. “We have a capacity here for at least 300,000 boxes,” said Emlyn. 

But that’s just part of the business. The site is very large, with modern warehouses having replaced the farm buildings, and a new office block in the planning stage.

With document storage came an opportunity for a shredding service.  In the early days Squab just made do with a small shredder to handle the needs of its own clients.  Today, with the price of paper ranging from £50/tonne up to £200/tonne ,depending on the quality, the company has invested in industrial capacity shredding equipment and takes in shredding work from the local community, other Box-it^® members and moving companies.  In fact Emlyn said that this was an opportunity that many movers seem to miss.  “It’s easy for movers to offer their customers a sack in which to put documents for shredding.  They collect them from their jobs and deliver them to us for disposal.  It’s a valuable revenue stream, especially when times are tight, and there are good margins to be made even for the middle man.”  Any company wishing to provide this service does need to register with the environment agency but it doesn’t cost much and can be done online.

The move into HHG storage and removals 

It wasn’t that long before the local people realised that Squab had storage facilities at the farm and the company started receiving enquiries to store household goods.  From there it was an easy transition to doing the move itself, the first moves being completed around five years ago. In 2008 Squab bought Eric Delo Removals & Storage Ltd, the local Britannia member.  “We were very keen to get in to Britannia and it’s been a great success for us,” explained Emlyn. “We also inherited some swap-body vehicles that have proved to be very useful as well as a number of well trained removal crew”

Emlyn admits that the attraction of the moving business is that it creates storage.  However he isn’t interested in the moving work at any price.  “We always try to be as professional as possible while still offering a small-business service,” he said. “We employ our own staff and the guys are properly trained, look smart and understand our culture. We want to be at the top in our geographical area and have set ourselves a vision to become the No.1 choice for moving and storage for domestic and commercial removals in Warwickshire.”

Getting the cost right

Although the moving company has access to excellent storage facilities which are owned by the family’s holding company, Emlyn said that he had never been tempted to ignore the cost of the accommodation when costing jobs. “We charge rent to the three companies (removals, document storage and HHG storage). It’s as close to the market rent as we can get.  Our logic is to set our prices at such a level that we could, if necessary, move to commercial premises and still be OK.” The income from the rents enables the family to re-invest in the buildings and additional land and allows it to borrow, when necessary, at reasonable rates.

“We do sometimes offer a discount from normal prices during quiet times. We show it as a ‘sale’ price otherwise people will think that that’s all the service is worth.”

Emlyn feels that the moving industry in the UK is probably very close to the bottom of the price level. “I can only speak locally,” he said, “but it’s a cut-throat market. In the last few years we have seen some extremely low prices and it doesn’t need to go any lower.”  But he explained that getting out of the cycle of declining prices is hard as the industry is so fragmented.  “We must do it through the education of the people who come into contact with the industry. That’s why I am in favour of the apprenticeship scheme. We need to make schools more aware of the opportunities in the industry.  I believe that the Driver CPC will help force school leavers into understanding that out business does require an independent qualification. Our society is one that requires pieces of paper. I know it’s a pain, I know it costs us money, but ultimately it will have the effect of driving prices up and making the industry more attractive. It will help create barriers to entry that show that we are employing multi-skilled people.”

Standards

Emlyn is a supporter of British Standards and was in favour of the proposal for compulsory standards for BAR membership in the debate earlier this year. “We have all three,” he explained [Removals, Storage and Self Storage]. “It’s up to us to make sure the public knows what they mean.  There is also a role for BAR in promoting the skills that the industry has through PR to the public.”

When he came into the industry he was disappointed at the varying service quality within BAR members and looked to compulsory standards as a way of raising the general level. “I saw the British Standard as a way of raising standards across the board. I felt it would do the industry the world of good to create that barrier to entry that might lead to a better price. You can argue as much as you like that it’s just a paperwork exercise but it’s better than nothing at all.”

The company today

As might be expected Britannia Squab has storage facilities that would be the envy of many in the industry today.  The family employs 26 people across the three businesses and work hard to get the best out of everyone by involving them in the business through regular meetings, ongoing training and by having an open-door policy.  It also tries to promote from within whenever possible and many of the administration staff started their careers as crew members.  In fact Emlyn often gets crews to spend time in the office and office people to go on the road to encourage an atmosphere of understanding and co-operation throughout the organisation. “Whenever we swap roles that way we always get some really good ideas come out.”

Emlyn is also a fan of Referenceline, the online customer reference site. “I believe that everyone should be using something like Referenceline because it holds us to account by letting customers write honestly about us on the Internet.  It also gives us the opportunity of transferring that information to the crews. We have a strong appraisal process and we try to use the reports from Referenceline as part of the work assessment during the year.”

Today the moving company is still 70% domestic with the remaining 30% split between shipping, commercial and other types of work.  Although the crews spend most of their time on domestic household goods moves they enjoy the variety of occasional export packing or office moves. “The problem is that they can be slower than a crew that is doing the same type of work all the time.  For this reason we are trying to develop some specialist skills amongst some individuals.”

The company has invested very heavily in the last few years but the site is an impressive testimony to the entrepreneurial spirit that Emlyn and his brother have shown.  Although there is some further expansion planned Emlyn says that the time has come for a little consolidation. “It’s now about running the business as efficiently as we can. We must try to continue improving what we’ve got.”

*For those interested in such things a Squab is a baby pigeon. It’s a strange name for a moving company perhaps but perfectly appropriate for a farmer to whom a Squab must have been an unwelcome visitor, especially if he brought his friends.  It’s also the name for a cushion on a sofa or chair, so there is a removals connection too.