21.11.2003

Back to basics

In an interview with Vertikal.net, John Coughlan, newly appointed president of UpRight, spoke of some of the recent changes in the company and how he plans to confront the issues that it now faces.

One thing that is clear is that Coughlan brings a new and fresh view to the industry. He sees himself as an “engineer–marketeer” and when asked what attracted him to the post at UpRight, he stated that it suited his background and ties together his wide range of experiences in the single job.
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John Coughlan.

Coughlan joined UpRight in July this year as general manger of UpRight Europe. He started his career as an engineer and has since worked in a range of positions, including quality assurance and commercial management and operations. Initially working with lifts and elevators, he then moved through a variety of automotive suppliers and on to the electronics industry, picking up several prestigious awards along the way. He most recently completed an MBA course at Oxford Brooks University.

"I am ambitious and the role at UpRight looked like a challenge and an opportunity that suited me,” says Coughlan. “I also believe that the industry is at the bottom of a retrenchment cycle on the point of an upturn. Timing is everything.”

Moving on to the recent changes that propelled him to the top job at UpRight after only three months with the company, he commented that he was well-aware that a full review was underway when he joined and that “in such situations opportunities can arise at a moments notice.”

Of his impressions of the aerial lift industry “it seems that there is a lack of understanding of business principles in some parts,” he comments. “Many companies are carrying a lot of liability. Thankfully, UpRight did not enter into such practices in the past.” Coughlan sees this as a strength in the company that will help as the upturn takes hold.

Asked about his priorities in Europe, he stressed a theme that he came back to over and over again, “customer focus and customer relationship management, listening to the customer and acting up it.” And this is the message that he intends transferring to UpRight’s suppliers. “The ultimate customer of our supplier is not us, it is our customer,” he says. “This might be a new approach in the lift business, but it is well established in the automotive field.

“This boils down to a priority to understand what UpRight customers are looking for and to place customer service right at the top of the agenda. If we don’t, then quite frankly, we don’t have a business.”

UpRight has always had a strong distribution network and traditionally strong working relationships with its distributors. “We will be building on this base and getting back to the close distributor partnerships that were the cornerstone of UpRight’s success in the past,” he states.

No specific changes are planned for the UK business, according to Coughlan, but the customer focus which already exists in the UK operation will be increasingly supported from all other parts of the business.

When asked about recent changes in Germany, Coughlan highlighted that UpRight’s district manager, Holger Johan, has set up his own operation, Powerlift, which now sells and services UpRight products along with a number of other UpRight regional dealers. Also, Sonja Blumberg, sales and administration coordinator for Germany, has also moved back to Germany to help support that dealer network.

Both John Coghlan and UpRight sales and marketing director, Steve Couling, both believe that this new arrangement will provide a better and more dynamic service to UpRight’s German customers.

When asked what he plans to do about UpRight’s poor reputation in the recent past for parts deliveries, Coughlan once again referred back to the customer service focus and stated that in the three months since he has been on board, actions have already been taken. He watches the parts performance on a daily basis and was delighted to see that September was the best month since 2000 for volume of parts shipments and availability, while October followed a similar path. “With this trend continuing,” he says, “we [UpRight] will soon be more than meeting expectations.”

Speaking of poor product deliveries that have dogged some UpRight products in recent months, Coughlan said that the new global team is already focusing on this area. “Managing the supply chain is a key global area that must be addressed on a global basis. It will take us a few months to see any benefits, so I cannot promise that it will change overnight, but it will change!”

For the immediate future, Coughlan claims that a new corporate structure at UpRight will take the company back into a single global business, rather than two separate businesses joined by a common name, which has been attributed to the Chapter 11 process.

“I want to be a global president,” he says. “I will spend time equally in the US, Europe and Asia as I do not want to remove myself from our markets. You need to be there to understand the changes that are going on. Senior managers will not all be based at the same plant and we are looking for a truly global team with the most senior managers of the various aspects of the business located in both in the US and in Europe.

“Personally, I want to focus now on making things good for our customers. I want to be number one to our customers. Any market position for UpRight will flow from that.”