Finning announce a ground breaking three year service support led deal for nine items of Caterpillar equipment worth in excess of £1m, with Raymond Brown Group for use in its construction, minerals and recycling divisions.
The deal includes five Cat 320DL excavators, two Cat 962H wheel loaders, one Cat 966H wheel loader and a Cat M318DL Material handler, with a guaranteed three year uptime promise for every machine.
As the largest general construction deal signed by Finning since the beginning of the recession, the over £1m Raymond Brown fleet purchase marks a significant vote of confidence for Finning, as it was won on the back of its service support offering.
The machines are fully backed up with a three year warranty and service package, guaranteeing Raymond Brown the most cost effective, efficient owning and operating costs. Also included in the deal was an industry first three year guaranteed uptime Lastability promise for all the machines, meaning Raymond Brown can rest in the knowledge that Finning is behind them for the full life of the machine.
As one of the plant sectors most established, independent fleet operators, Raymond Brown Group has over 50 years experience in managing plant and equipment from its Hampshire based head office. Having recently undergone a management buyout, the 70 million pound turnover group’s interests include civil engineering and building, but it is its environmental construction, mineral and recycling divisions, where plant and equipment choice is most important.
Commenting on the deal with Finning, Raymond Brown Group plant director, Mark Isaac said: “Even though the country is officially out of the recession, the current climate is still very challenging. However as a forward thinking and well run business, we recognised that there would be significant financial benefits in placing an order of this nature at this time. Not only would we have the most up to date fleet in the market, that would give us the ability to ramp up our operations in a recovery, we would also be able to benefit from competitive pricing and equipment availability.
"Learning from our recent experience, we have now moved to more service delivery approach to our fleet purchasing decision making process, where the overall cost of ownership, servicing and performance per litre of fuel, is more important than unit purchase price for example.
"What we also needed to be confident with in terms of this purchase decision was that we selected a supplier business in Finning and Caterpillar that is here to stay, not only from a production point of view but from a service delivery perspective, as we are not prepared to compromise on this.”
Following on from its first deal for six years with Raymond Brown Group in June 2009 to supply the business with two Cat D6T LGP’s, the latest order represents one of the most important turnarounds for Finning, as sales representative Darren Bodio explains: “In 2009 when we sold the Raymond Brown Group its first Caterpillar machinery for six years we saw this as a significant move forward. In turn this allowed us to be able to tender for this fleet renewal deal.
"With this new tender they had a significant focus on service, support and equipment delivery. From a Finning perspective this played right to our strengths, as even with the severity of the recession we have been able to maintain our national service network and in particular mobile service fleet to enable us to deliver a very high level of support to our customers.
"It is refreshing to see that a company like Raymond Brown Group also recognises the importance of dealing with a supplier like Finning that has this long-term commitment to servicing the plant sector. In particular the team at Raymond Brown Group also recognised that we were practicing what we were preaching by setting our own goals through our Lastability promise, to save the industry £10m in 2010."
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