A premium car delivery and handover service - started on the eve of COVID-19 – has just passed its fifth birthday in style thanks to specialist support and funding from Business Growth West Midlands in Dudley.
EC Logistics, which has its head office in Halesowen and a 2000 sq ft facility in Lye as well a large secure storage facility in Coleshill just off the M42 has tapped into a near £9k capital grant to help it purchase two Brian James trailers to create a 10-strong fleet.
The grant was funded by the UK Government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund and facilitated by Dudley Council.
This will help the family-run company build on a record-breaking £1.5m year, providing tailored delivery and collection of new cars, trade plate deliveries, corporate handovers and dealer-to dealer-activity.
20 people are now directly employed, with a further 20 self-employed drivers ensuring it can meet its growing range of clients, including BMW Sytner, Group 1 Automotive and Startin Group.
Ed Chambers, Managing Director, commented:
“The last twelve months are certainly a far cry from when we first started, ploughing initial investment into EC Logistics only to have the pandemic hit us three months later.
“Things literally stopped overnight, but because we were a logistics business, we were eventually told we could still operate and thankfully things came back online within nine months, and we’ve just got busier and busier.
“I’ve been involved in the automotive sector for 20 plus years, so have put all this experience into creating the most exceptional delivery service - after all we’re often making the customer’s day when we drop off their new car. I’ll never take that for granted.”
EC Logistics has ambitious plans to expand by a further 25% over the next twelve months and this meant extending its fleet of trailers to ten.
The company turned to Business Growth West Midlands in Dudley, who put it in touch with Business Growth Adviser Steve Dunn to help with financial forecasting and to identity potential funding options.
He encouraged the husband-and-wife management team to engage with Business Adviser Helen Fortune on the Investment Readiness Programme and this proved pivotal in helping them navigate the application process and securing a £8900 capital grant from Dudley Council.
Ed continued:
“The advice and guidance were crucial in smoothing the process for the match-funding we received and definitely helped accelerate the purchase of the two trailers by a good six months.
“Steve was also an excellent sounding board for our growth ideas and was always happy to look at other business support we could tap into.
He also knows just the right time to call, and we welcome having that external business knowledge.”
Business Growth West Midlands in Dudley, which is funded by Dudley Council via the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, is supporting more than 600 companies based in the borough with advice from local Business Growth Advisers.
Run by Oxford Innovation Advice, the initiative delivers an information, diagnostic, brokerage, and account management service to support local businesses to thrive, innovate, and grow, whilst also supporting entrepreneurs to progress their business ideas.
A special focus is placed on helping firms in key local sectors and engaging with harder to reach groups, such as women-led and ethnic minority-led businesses.
Steve Dunn, Business Growth Adviser, concluded:
“EC Logistics is a fantastic example of the enterprising nature we have in the Black Country, and I’m really pleased to see that the grant funding has been put to such good use – helping it boost sales and create new jobs.
“I know that Ed has exciting plans to head towards £2m in turnover and this should involve eight new roles and the purchase of a third site in the West Midlands. We are supporting this by finding them a space on the High Growth Programme.”
For further information, please visit www.ec-logistics.co.uk or www.dudleybusinessfirst.org.uk