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Alpha's skidsteer revolution
00:00 14 Jul 1999
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by Keren Sall
Alpha Plant has launched a dedicated skidsteer plant hire operation to help increase skidsteer use in the UK. It has already spent £1.25 million on 100 JCB Robot skidsteers. Alpha has the option of increasing this to 500 over the next 18 months.
Rick Still, ex-Compair UK business development manager, has been recruited by Alpha to head Alpha Skidsteer Hire and Justin Cole has just joined the company from CW Plant as a dedicated skidsteer rep.
The company is actively looking for hire reps for the new venture. They will be trained by JCB which is equally keen for leadership in skidsteer sales in the home market.
Phil Elam, director of Alpha Plant, told CJ: "JCB are building skidsteers in America and will be chasing Bobcat. To be successful in a market such as the States they will need to come from a position of strength in the home market. Alpha can't give JCB market leadership overnight but it can give it a big chunk of the market."
Alpha, which has depots in Gravesend in Kent and Edmonton, London, plans to open a further two depots, one in the South West and another in the Midlands by the end of the year The two new depots will initially concentrate on skidsteer hire and will eventually offer general plant once the skidsteer venture takes off.
"Pound for pound the return on skidsteers is much better and capital investment is two-and-a-half to three times less than on telehandlers," said 36-year old Alpha founder Howdy Binning. "We are aiming to be the biggest skidsteer hire company in the UK by the end of the year and in Europe over the next few years."
Binning told CJ that the inspiration for a skidsteer hire operation arose from a visit to the American Rental Association (ARA) exhibition in Las Vegas earlier this year. "On nearly every street corner in the States you will find a skidsteer at work. What the Amercians do is tow it as everyone has got a pickup for the attachments they need. It is a much under-used machine in the UK when you consider there are 32 different attachments for a skidsteer and 120 different applications for those attachments. In the States they sell 50,000 skidsteers a year and in comparison a mere 900 in the UK."
Alpha Plant has launched a dedicated skidsteer plant hire operation to help increase skidsteer use in the UK. It has already spent £1.25 million on 100 JCB Robot skidsteers. Alpha has the option of increasing this to 500 over the next 18 months.
Rick Still, ex-Compair UK business development manager, has been recruited by Alpha to head Alpha Skidsteer Hire and Justin Cole has just joined the company from CW Plant as a dedicated skidsteer rep.
The company is actively looking for hire reps for the new venture. They will be trained by JCB which is equally keen for leadership in skidsteer sales in the home market.
Phil Elam, director of Alpha Plant, told CJ: "JCB are building skidsteers in America and will be chasing Bobcat. To be successful in a market such as the States they will need to come from a position of strength in the home market. Alpha can't give JCB market leadership overnight but it can give it a big chunk of the market."
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Alpha, which has depots in Gravesend in Kent and Edmonton, London, plans to open a further two depots, one in the South West and another in the Midlands by the end of the year The two new depots will initially concentrate on skidsteer hire and will eventually offer general plant once the skidsteer venture takes off.
"Pound for pound the return on skidsteers is much better and capital investment is two-and-a-half to three times less than on telehandlers," said 36-year old Alpha founder Howdy Binning. "We are aiming to be the biggest skidsteer hire company in the UK by the end of the year and in Europe over the next few years."
Binning told CJ that the inspiration for a skidsteer hire operation arose from a visit to the American Rental Association (ARA) exhibition in Las Vegas earlier this year. "On nearly every street corner in the States you will find a skidsteer at work. What the Amercians do is tow it as everyone has got a pickup for the attachments they need. It is a much under-used machine in the UK when you consider there are 32 different attachments for a skidsteer and 120 different applications for those attachments. In the States they sell 50,000 skidsteers a year and in comparison a mere 900 in the UK."
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