Transforming Mercedes truck dealer eStar with a £20m turnover turnaround

George Barrow
July 29, 2024

For some, the gates of a manufacturer’s headquarters are a glittering destination in a career that may have already taken them from suppliers, dealers or other areas of the industry. But for Steve Bridge, MD of eStar Truck & Van, his tenure as boss of one of the biggest names in the van business was just a stepping-stone to the next chapter.

CM: What prompted you to leave as the boss of Mercedes-Benz Vans UK?

SB: It was about circumstances. Of course, it’s geographically convenient for me and Sid [Sadique], who’s the chairman is a friend of mine. But I said to Stuttgart [Mercedes-Benz head office], think about it, you get me having spent 20 years as the wholesaler to now be a retailer. For good or bad, I can tell you what it’s like on the other side. So that, and the new challenge, were a massive attraction for me.

CM: Coming to head up eStar, you took on the sites from Roanza, which had gone into administration. What did you find when you walked through the door?

SB: What I noticed when I came in, as is often the case when you inherit a broken business, is that the people were all fundamentally good, but that the culture was problematic. We had to put some values into the business about customer centricity, operating with integrity, and being curious about change. What I saw was that there had been no investment in leadership at all. How can I run five sites myself? I can’t. I’ve got to have general managers who are on it. That’s what I set about doing, giving them the empowerment and the courage to make their own mistakes.

CM: It’s been a tough few years for businesses. How do you keep pushing eStar forward in tough times and beyond?

SB: Despite everything – Covid, Brexit, parts shortages, the Ukraine war – we’ve turned the business around. When I took over, it had lost £17.5m that year; now we’re making a couple of million. That’s a £20m turnaround. My job now is to create the best version of a dealer that I can create. In order to do that I have to ask the customers what they want. It’s no good me deciding. I ask every customer what their wish list is. They all want the same, by the way – they want a free vehicle that never breaks down, but they want a vehicle that suits the job, and they want as much uptime as possible. That’s why you see messages all around the business saying that our mission is to keep people moving. That’s why we exist. Too many dealers love it when a customer breaks down because they’re all about selling vehicles, parts and labour. You must think the other way round and love it when a customer doesn’t break down.

You have to adopt what I call the ‘airline mentality’, because aeroplanes are maintained to within an inch of their lives. Everything I do is people- and process-driven. If I don’t have the right people, I can’t teach them the process. You’ve got to design the process, and people then execute the process. We’ve got to have processes for selling, or mending, or customer complaints and enquiries, but when you inherit a business that has zero process, it’s not for the faint-hearted. It’s a tough job. 

CM: How do you see the dealer landscape evolving in the UK and what part will eStar play?

SB: There will be fewer truck partners, but more locations. I’d like to create a scenario where I’m never more than half an hour away from the customers I want to service. Then I’ve got to make sure that my brother and sister dealers all act in the best interest of the customers. We don’t have that at the moment. We have a network; we have physical sites, but we don’t have a joined-up approach. eStar has this chance to prove itself in the market. I’m not after every customer in Britain, but I want to have a good reputation and to feel like I’ve made a difference and brought people into the business.

CM: What’s harder – being on the manufacturer side of the fence, or at dealership level?

SB: This is harder because you have to be more of a chameleon in this one and adapt to many different situations. The other one was hard, because you had to deal with the politics of a multinational plc. This job has more impact on people’s lives. I have to make sure that I have enough money in the bank to pay everybody’s wages every month. It would be an interesting question to look back on in 15 years from now, because clearly I’ve only got three years under my belt and they’ve been quite hard yards. Naturally, I’m going to say that it’s a bit hard. This is more immediate – we are influencing whether or not a customer gets the goods or people delivered. Plus, this is 24 hours, seven days a week. In my old job, Saturdays and Sundays were sacrosanct.

CM: Do you think you should have done this job earlier?

SB: Yes, in hindsight, possibly. I am getting older. But I can see that the next 10 years are quite exciting. I think I’ve completed my career really – that’s not to say I’m going to retire, but I started at a dealer when I was 17 and I’m 57 now, so that’s 40 years – and I’m back at a dealership, adapting and evolving it so that it’s a better version of what it needs to be, while bringing younger talent into the business to grow it.

- This article was first published in the 29 February issue of Commercial Motor.

About the Author

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George Barrow

George has been writing about nearly anything with wheels for the past 15 years and is the UK jury member of the International Van of the Year and International Pick-Up Award.

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