Route One Edwards Coaches

3 June 2015 | Issue 592
routeONE magazine
@routeoneteam
The equation of business
Wales’ largest coach company has done it again. Edwards Coaches is 90 years old and still run
by the same family. And it has already won more awards this year than you can shake a stick at. We
talk taking opportunities and the philosophy of sound business principles with its director. p24-26
Record order for Euro 6
Redwing buys Reliance
The latest on Atego
First places £78m orders for new buses. p4-5
Connected operators wrap up purchase. p12
UNVI reveals its Voyager GT midicoach. p29-32
Half-price recruitment offer this summer – see p60
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02/06/2015 14:59
Profile | Edwards Coaches
90 years of
opportunity
Edwards has started its 91st year of operation
in a good place, having won numerous awards,
most recently at the National Coach Tourism
Awards. Jessamy Chapman visits the business to
discover the thinking that makes Wales’ largest
coach operator so successful
1. 24 vehicles
have already
been ordered for
2015, including
10 MercedesBenz Tourismos
2. MD Mike
Edwards: ‘An
institution in the
business’
It’s the biggest coach operator in
Wales, and one of the best coach
operators in the UK. Its success has
been emphasised in 2015, its 90th
anniversary year, most recently at
the National Coach Tourism Awards
when it took home four accolades.
And yet, Pontypridd-based
Edwards Coaches is still a familyrun business. Fourth-generation
Managing Director Mike Edwards
works with all four of his children
as directors, with Jason taking on
most of the day-to-day running as
Commercial Director. His brother
Shaun works in engineering, and
sisters Kelly and Jess work in HR and
finance respectively.
“My father Mike is an institution in
the business,” says Jason. “He’s 66, and
we’ve started to get him to think about
retiring – he’s only working six days a
week now, down from seven.”
Jason has no trace of complacency
over the awards the business has
won. “I was gobsmacked,” he says, of
the recent National Coach Tourism
Awards. “To win four was amazing,
and humbling.
“We always say this, but just to be
shortlisted is a massive achievement.
Any of the other finalists could’ve
24 | Wednesday 3 June 2015
edwards holidays iss592.indd 24
won, and it would have been well
deserved.”
The awards were for Large Coach
Tour Operator, best Individual Hotel
(Portbyhan Hotel in Looe), Coach
Tourism Professional (Alan Clough)
and Coach Tour Driver (Glyn
Bowden).
Taking opportunities
The Portbyhan Hotel was bought
by the company in June 2013, the
only hotel it owns, and it’s a story
that reflects Edwards’ passion for
innovation and opportunity. The
award was the crowning achievement
after two years’ hard slog.
It was bought out of administration,
as an opportunity for the business:
The hotel’s location and reputation
made it attractive, and within a
week of finding out that it was in
administration, Jason had bought
it. “That was the easy bit,” he says.
“Finding people we could trust to run
it, and building it up from scratch, was
more difficult.
“We have a long coach holiday
background so we knew what we
wanted, and what it should be – but
the question was, how to get there?”
A complete refurbishment of the
1
3. Success at the
National Coach
Tourism Awards
4. Friendly
atmosphere
among staff,
many of whom
are long-serving
2
hotel – including new drainage, new
mechanical and electrical systems,
new roof, windows, doors, kitchen,
restaurant, bedrooms and public
rooms – has made it one of the best
hotels in the area, acknowledged by
TripAdvisor, which has just rewarded
it with a Certificate of Excellence.
“It’s been a steep learning curve –
enjoyable, but a learning curve,” says
Jason. “Our heads of department
down there all do a tremendous
job. We’re only getting better – our
reputation is improving every day.”
Life-changing event
Mike, Jason and Shaun all have
backgrounds in engineering – Jason
as an aviation engineer for British
Airways – so it’s a firm that’s more
focused on the nuts and bolts side of
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02/06/2015 10:05
in a structured environment,” he says,
“with an emphasis on quality and
getting it right first time.
“In this industry you never know
what the next phone call will be about.
It’s enjoyable – if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t
be here. I’ve always been grateful for
the opportunity I’ve had, and I’ve
never not been thankful for it.”
3
business than sales and marketing,
he says. When routeone visited last
month, Edwards had just had 10
Mercedes-Benz Tourismos delivered,
and had placed an order for 14
Caetano Levantes on Volvo chassis
for its National Express contracts.
“That’s 24 vehicles this year already,
and it’s only May,” says Jason, who
had just returned from a visit to the
Irizar factory in northern Spain. If the
company decides to buy Irizars as a
result – and Jason is full of praise for
the standards of the factory and the
team – it will be the first time it has
bought the make since 2001.
That order, for three Scania Irizar
Centuries, nearly fell through after
the events of 9/11. It’s an event close
to Jason’s heart, as at the time he was
working for British Airways, and it
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4
changed the course of his life.
He had taken voluntary
redundancy and planned to take a
year out to travel Europe, but 9/11
changed his mind for him. He was
offered another job in aviation, in
Norway – but that fell through due to
the plummet in the aviation industry.
After a month off, he came into
the family business. “I picked myself
up,” he says. “I had my health, my
happiness, and some money in my
pocket.
“Now I do a bit of everything: Sales
and marketing, products, the hotel,
the National Express work, buses,
coach holidays; my door’s always
open. I never know what’s going to
happen next.”
His experience at BA was good
preparation. “I spent 13 years there
Portraying the industry
Jason is the fifth generation to manage
the business, which now has over 240
vehicles in the fleet.
His grandfather Alvis ran the
business before Mike did; before
him, Isiah Edwards; and before him,
George Edwards, who founded it in
1925.
Edwards is famous for its holidays,
but it does almost every other type
of work too: Some bus work, myriad
types of private hire, and National
Express contracts. It sends 33 coaches
to London every day on National
Express work. But a massive part of
its work is schools; it transports 6,500
schoolchildren every day on contracts,
and its excellent relationships with
schools and councils means it does a
lot of private hire for them too.
“I like to think we’ve got a cracking
relationship with the councils,” says
Jason. “We get lots of work for them,
from other operators who’ve done the
job badly. If you only want to take over
the world working for nothing, you’ll
find it bites you on the backside.”
Edwards has won plenty of
contracts this way. “I often think
to myself, do those operators have
different costs to us? We work out the
cost of everything – diesel, oil, wages
– then we’ve got a rough idea of what
the price should be: A + B + C + D =
E. I think A and B must be missing off
some people’s calculators.
“It has a detrimental effect on the
whole industry. When you’re working
for nothing, you’re not investing or
paying your drivers properly, and
you’re giving a substandard service.”
It’s particularly true for schools
work, he says. “Schoolchildren are
potential holiday customers in the
future, and the impression they
get from substandard operators is
damaging to the whole industry.
There are more good companies
than bad companies, but the bad
companies put people off using
coaches. We try to portray the
industry in the way it should be.”
Difference for kids
It was this factor that led the firm, in
2006, to setting up Ecole – a specialist
school tour organiser. “We were fed 8
Wednesday 3 June 2015 | 25
02/06/2015 10:05
Profile | Edwards Coaches
8 up with the existing educational tour
companies letting schools down,
letting customers down and letting
children down,” Jason explains. “So
we decided to do our own.”
Ecole is headed up by John Hadler,
whose background is with Suffolkbased Galloway, another schools
tour specialist. It’s now a huge part of
Edwards’ business, and the byword
is value-for-money – as Jason says:
“It’s not the cheapest, but we provide
quality accommodation, brand new
coaches, driver performance and GPS
monitoring, and a high level of safety.
“It’s about offering value-for-money
holidays that I’d be happy to send my
own children on, with twin rooms, a
choice of food, good facilities and an
achievable itinerary. It has a very loyal
following of teachers, who are offering
their students a fantastic opportunity
to learn outside the classroom. And
it’s a life experience – going abroad,
using different currency, eating
different food, experiencing different
smells. That’s priceless.
“The feedback from teachers is
brilliant. If they book with us once,
they never go anywhere else again.”
Serving the public
When Edwards decides to do
something, it does it properly. Bus
operation is not a massive part of
the business – it has just two bus
routes – but they were put in place
because Edwards saw that the
community was suffering badly from
the incumbent’s services.
“My nan rang me up to complain
the bus hadn’t turned up,” says Jason.
“We decided to do something,
because the local community was
struggling to get to the towns and
public services.”
Two routes were started in
2010: one from Pontypridd to the
Royal Glamorgan Hospital, and a
commuter service from Beddau to
Cardiff.
Both were started and continue as
fully-commercial services, with new
buses on the routes.
There are no plans to extend
the network – “we’re happy with
what we’ve got,” says Jason. “We
prefer to do the one job really well,
and concentrate our efforts into
making those two routes offer good
standards.”
The new bus routes got more
public response than anything else
the company has done since Jason
has been there, he says.
“Working for the British Lions
and The X Factor went relatively
unnoticed,” he smiles.
“The public reaction to this was
something else.”
Jason Edwards:
‘Always thankful
for opportunity’
When you’re working for nothing,
you’re not investing properly. It has a
detrimental effect on the industry 26 | Wednesday 3 June 2015
edwards holidays iss592.indd 26
‘The harder I work…’
The holiday side of the business
offers great choice to passengers, with
options for every budget: The Brian
Isaac programme offers ‘super value’,
while the Red Dragon tours are at the
high-end of the market. The company
has three brochures – winter, summer
and Europe – ably supported by the
travel shop staff. “They’re brilliant,”
says Jason. “They treat the shop and
business as though it’s their own.”
There is a good atmosphere at
Edwards. Many of the staff have
been there for decades, and they’re
loyal and friendly. Jason praises the
workshop staff, and says that many
started as apprentices years ago and
stay well into their 40s, 50s and 60s.
The apprenticeship programme
focuses mainly on the maintenance
side, and the firm currently has
around 10 apprentices. “We prefer
to employ new staff without any
previous experience so that we can
mould them, plus it helps to get new
blood into the industry,” says Jason.
There are 470 staff in all, based
at the head office and six travel
shops; there are five satellite depots
as well for parking. The head office
comprises eight acres, with offices,
workshops and an ATF, and coach
parking, as well as customer parking
and a waiting room for tour clients.
When Jason joined the business,
there were 60 staff and the company
was turning over £4m: 13 years later,
there are 470 staff and the turnover
is £40m.
It’s been 13 years of innovation,
hard work, organic growth and
acquisitions – the most notable of
which was Diamond Holidays in
2011, which made Edwards the
largest coach operator in Wales.
“Diamond was a very well-known
company and they did a fantastic
job – it was just poorly managed,” says
Jason. “They lost focus.
“We’ve had a lot of luck, but we’ve
put blood, sweat and tears into the
business,” he continues. “There’s
a saying – ‘the harder I work, the
luckier I get’. It’s absolutely true.”
Jason also pays tribute to Edwards’
loyal customers. “We talk about
the high-profile jobs, but the most
important customer to me is old Mrs
Jones who books every Wednesday
to go to Weston-super-Mare. That’s
what our business has been built on,
and we never forget that. It’s nice to
have the glitz and the glamour, but
our top customers are those who have
been with us for a long time – they
make us what we are. We’re blessed
with some fantastic customers.”
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