COMING SOON Full details on how the readers of Service Dealer can vote for the machines, the innovations, the companies and the people who have shaped the garden machinery and outdoor power equipment industry over the past decades
DIARY DATE The winners of the Heritage Awards will be revealed at a special event at SALTEX on Tuesday 6 September. More details later.
SERVICE DEALER BUSINESS QUARTERLY Published April, June, September and December 2013
BEGINNING TO ADD UP Consensus breaking out in the numbers game
MY question last week about the number of people employed in the land-based engineering sector brought forward a number of useful pointers to the true figures.
As you recall, I refered you to a weighty tome entitled Skills Strategy 2012-2017 published by a coaltion of trade organisations last year in which it admitted first, that the number of participants was largely a ‘guesstimate’, but if it had to be pinned down, then 10,400 was the number.
The problem is one of definition. What is the industry? Do we include only dealers? What about manufacturers, suppliers and importers? Hardware shops who sell mowers? Service centres? Contractors and hire shops? Repairers?
All of these are involved in the supply and service of the products that make up the industry. They all need training.
The truth is that for an industry that extends from combines to garden shears, getting at the total number of participants is probably too big an ask.
So in true Donald Rumsfield style, we have to deal with ‘knowns, unknowns, things are know and things that are unknown etc ’ - and concentrate on what we would consider to be the ‘rump’ of the industry.
In that respect, drawing both on a survey conducted a couple of years ago by David Kirschner in association with LANTRA, and more recently by a dealer survey conducted by BAGMA, both agree that the total number of people employed at sales and service dealer locations in the UK is in the region of 25,000 - and that technicians make up +40% of that total. So the 10,400 was probably about right if it refered to the number of technical specialists working within dealerships, who require ongoing training.
Of course that ignores the fact that sales and parts staff also need constant updating - and in fact that virtually everyone involved in a dealership must come under the requirement for ongoing professional development.
At least though, consensus appears to be breaking out . . .
