By Philip Cledwyn, Tecalemit Sales and Marketing Director
As you’ll be aware Unipart Automotive has gone into Administration and was a distributor of Tecalemit equipment. This short paper explains briefly how that impacts on Tecalemit.
It hopefully goes without saying that I and all my colleagues at Tecalemit have personal friends and acquaintances at Unipart Automotive, who have lost their jobs, had fundamental and unsought changes to their working lives, or whose future is uncertain, and we feel very much for them at this time.
However, the impact on Tecalemit itself, and Tecalemit customers, is limited. Here’s the position:
Financial
The financial impact isn’t a consideration – we were aware of the problems, stopped supplying Unipart Automotive some time ago, and had assertively reduced their credit position with us. When it has all shaken out, yes, we’ll be owed some money, but the amount involved is annoying rather than critical.
Interruption to supply
There’s no interruption to supply of Tecalemit equipment – customers can deal with any one of our distributors or should they need further technical advice they can talk to a Tecalemit sales person, call us or email us (01752 219111 /[email protected]) and we’ll be delighted to help.
Our analysis of the situation
The final point I would make is that there has been an excess of resellers for some time which no market sector could sustain in perpetuity.
I wouldn’t have wished this on Unipart Automotive and feel greatly for the friends who worked for the company and whose position is now difficult; but purely from a business perspective we believe it will restore vigour and strength to the market and may even be the saving of some other companies.
There will doubtless be some froth and turbulence in the market for a while but then it should settle down with greater stability than before.
The loss of a reseller is administratively inconvenient but the fact is that the relationship with Unipart Automotive was already over and the market is now undergoing changes to accommodate the new situation.
I regret the impact on the Unipart Automotive employees but some kind of substantive shake up in the market was inevitable. It would be preferable to achieve that through strategy and corporate activity rather than in this brutal way, but change had to come.
Philip Cledwyn
Sales and Marketing Director
tecalemit.co.uk / +44 (0) 1752 219111 / [email protected]