Apparently loosing too much money, Stobbies due to break contract early for Homebase.
swindonadvertiser.co.uk/new … ob-losses/
“The drivers’ last contracted day is June 22, although they say that if the worst happens, they would have to come in on June 23 just to be officially told that the contract is over and they are now unemployed”
Nationwide one presumes?
Forgive me for being a bit thick, but when tendering for a job like this wouldn’t the haulier work out a figure that gave them a reasonable profit at the end of the day, surely they don’t just pick a number from their ring piece, or is it a case of must undercut the other mobs no matter what.
Stobart taking a lesson from the railway franchise privateers then.
Juddian:
Nationwide one presumes?Forgive me for being a bit thick, but when tendering for a job like this wouldn’t the haulier work out a figure that gave them a reasonable profit at the end of the day, surely they don’t just pick a number from their ring piece, or is it a case of must undercut the other mobs no matter what.
Stobbies are the king of the undercut. Thing is because they’ve normally got units and trailers all over the place they can normally get away with it.
No surprise. I worked a week on this contract out of Trafford park a while back.
Usual stobart shenanigans like waiting 4 hours in the morning for a truck.
Then hours shunting between yards to get your trailer.
Knackered kit, not one person around that gives a fig.
Worst planning ever, deliveries to stores that are closing or actually closed.
Deliver one box on an artic to a store 40 miles away etc.
Probably averaged 2 drops per day when the target was 6.
Shame for the lads working there but this was a shambles
Homebase’ days are numbered anyway, seen it too many times in recent years where struggling retailers start closing stores, it will all go pop soon enough. The drivers would be best off exercising some gumption and shipping out before the inevitable happens.
Juddian:
Nationwide one presumes?Forgive me for being a bit thick, but when tendering for a job like this wouldn’t the haulier work out a figure that gave them a reasonable profit at the end of the day, surely they don’t just pick a number from their ring piece, or is it a case of must undercut the other mobs no matter what.
The problem is when quoting for work, is that you never know how the job will run until you do it.
rob22888:
Homebase’ days are numbered anyway, seen it too many times in recent years where struggling retailers start closing stores, it will all go pop soon enough. The drivers would be best off exercising some gumption and shipping out before the inevitable happens.
Homebase have been through the worst bit. They were bought by Bunnings which was a disaster and then sold again. They are now investing heavily in the stores again.
It makes you wonder, why do the companies directors never seem to learn that the haulier/rail operator offering to do the job for the cheapest price often isn’t always going to be the best because it can’t actually be done for that price.
But what do I know I’m just a driver who is supposed to follow the last order from the transport office. Not paid to think 
As mentioned homebase are struggling shutting stores .
So maybe he’s getting out while he can.
He case he does all.the work they go under and then can’t pay him
I was talking to the people at the Wellingborough depot a while back. They said most of the office staff have left since Stobart have taken over and now the planning is shocking
As dark side says, sometimes what a customer says the work is, turns out to be completely different. You try and point out that the tender was wrong, so they need to do x and y, or they need to pay more, but they dont want to do either.
We once had a female college graduate come into our place in a senior management position, a few months in and after some very serious blunders with massive financial implications she was moved sideways to a sister depot. It took nearly a year for her to turn that from highly profitable to highly loss making.
She was once again moved sideways to head up the team to tender for the Carlsberg work at Northampton. I’m sure that the Carlsberg crew couldn’t sign fast enough once she’d underbid by around £5 million! It seems that she hadn’t taken into account the local work from plant to warehouse that runs 24/7 when putting her bid together. Carlsberg thanked her and refused to move on it.
Dunno where she is now but every time I see an empty factory I think of her! 
Just as well Stobbies to pull out early, there’s more than enough of the buggers running about, we don’t need any more of their sprogs … 
Crew room speculation
They recently closed a depot as it was loosing money , those drivers were told redundancy was not a option !!!, the only option was relocation ( according to mates it was stated we’ve done it before ) , lots left ( no redundancy ) , some trampers relocated , some day shift said you will pay redundancy as my personal circumstances are such I cannot relocate , so they knew they’d have to pay these so they rented space in another companies yard , 5 trucks , so they didn’t have to pay redundancy
If this is Swindon , I’m sure there was x amount of trucks based in Howard Tenens yard in Swindon , they could put some more in there , but whatever I’d guess they’ll do everything possible to not pay redundancy .
Nb one issue they said for closing the depot
was running 50 miles to pick up loads , the yard they’ve based 5 in is 62 miles away , go figure
I remember what they did to the chilled division , alcester, Corby , Heywood , Newark , lark hall , they’ve managed to shut the ■■■■■■■ lot with there incompetence !!!, so to get a tender wrong is small fry to them
the maoster:
We once had a female college graduate come into our place in a senior management position, a few months in and after some very serious blunders with massive financial implications she was moved sideways to a sister depot. It took nearly a year for her to turn that from highly profitable to highly loss making.She was once again moved sideways to head up the team to tender for the Carlsberg work at Northampton. I’m sure that the Carlsberg crew couldn’t sign fast enough once she’d underbid by around £5 million! It seems that she hadn’t taken into account the local work from plant to warehouse that runs 24/7 when putting her bid together. Carlsberg thanked her and refused to move on it.
Dunno where she is now but every time I see an empty factory I think of her!
The company I worked for went out to tender, brought someone in with to be fair a lot of tender experience…but no idea about haulage. I lost points on the first meeting when I asked why someone who wouldn’t know a truck if it ran them over them was doing writing this tender… The pricing matrix they issued, around 35% of it was placed we no longer went to, another 30% was done via a third party . And they didn’t request any form of ppm. Explains why the new company are charging 800 quid more for a trip to Paris with a van.
The bigger the company, the stupider the management. 
The firm I used to work for dropped a major customer because they wouldn’t accept a price increase. It wasn’t Stobart that took it on, but that firm was back a year later, happy to pay the price for the service they wanted.
They had about three trailers a day going to N Ireland loaded with pallets for delivery to shops. Most of the deliveries had to be transferred to 18 tonners with tail lifts and had to be booked in with the shop - all on a two-day delivery deadline. You can’t take on a contract like that without a top quality partner over the water. The new company tried to do it all in house.
Many years ago I worked for Thorn EMI. They had a factory in Sunderland that refurbished TV tubes and that factory had a ppm contract with a local haulier. Again, tricky work delivering to shops with deadlines. Some management wonk decided that they could save money by cutting the rate. The haulier said that they would make a loss on the price offered and dropped it. Deliveries went all to hell and they lost loads of business - of course, their days were numbered anyway, with flat screens on the horizon.
I believe they cut the rate on the InBev out of Salmesbury a couple of year ago,didn’t have a clue about shifting beer,banged some extra trailers and units in there and got reprimanded by traffic commissioner,I think they now have to pay Downtown’s to for fill contract for them until it runs out.
They used to run stuff out of the old Berkshire brewery years ago until K&N caught them taking duty suspended loads back to there yard and leaving them for a few days before delivering them.
Stobarts must do something right somewhere though. There’s certainly a few people in the company at top level who certainly aren’t stupid. We can mock them all we want but to be as big and successful as they are they ain’t stupid.