COVER STORY
JCB construction equipment is now supported locally by Bell Equipment South Africa Amidst a global pandemic, increasing competition and tough operating conditions businesses have been forced to re-evaluate operations. Lifting Africa sat down with Stephen McNeill, Bell Equipment Marketing and Alliance Partner Manager, to find out more about their approach to the new normal. The Covid-19 crisis forced a sudden change upon us all. It also put extreme pressure on supply chains, customer operations and purchases. Businesses have had to navigate a host of new financial and operational challenges while still meeting the needs of their people, customers and suppliers. Navigating the impact of Covid-19 has not been easy. Due to the depressed economic conditions made worse by the ongoing pandemic, the big challenge facing OEMs is the reduced demand for new equipment as customers are understandably nervous, says McNeill. “Unpredictable demand for a product and unstable demand for commodities makes it difficult to plan and prepare for market moves. Ensuring machine availability for our customers remains an increasingly difficult challenge.” Across the board, OEMs are preparing for another tough year with the industry outlook for South Africa remaining depressed as the country grapples with low infrastructure spending in a weakened economy with the spiralling national debt. “Our recently announced partnership with JCB should lead to some gains within the markets as JCB has a significant market share in certain sectors in which it is active, and we have increased our resources to ensure our support can match the machine population and exceed JCB customer expectations.” New agreements Bell Equipment Sales South Africa (BESSA) earlier this year announced it had been appointed by JCB, one of the most respected companies in the construction equipment sector, to be the distributor of its full range of construction equipment in South Africa from May 1. “The agreement has been well accepted by the market and our employees, who are all excited by the opportunity that it presents, namely the opportunity
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Lifting Africa - May/Jun 2021
to marry a well-respected, premium product range with a leading support network,” explains McNeill. “There have been some customers who are concerned about how it will impact support of products from our other OEM partners, but we have communicated that we and our OEM partners all fully appreciate our joint obligations to provide full support for the life of any units sold and will fully honour these obligations to our customers.” According to McNeill, the agreement gives the South African market access to JCB’s premium range of construction products supported by BESSA’s comprehensive local support network of 22 Bellowned branches. JCB customers now have the added benefit of buying from BESSA, which is a level 1 BBBEE company. “Currently our efforts are predominantly focused on ensuring that our transition to the JCB product line is as smooth and seamless as possible for customers and employees. A great deal of resources and effort has gone into ensuring adequate parts inventory and stock holding as well as making sure our sales and support staff are fully trained and versed to handle the new product range,” he says. “Once the JCB partnership has bedded down we should then be ready to introduce our new Series 5 Tractor to the market, which will target the forestry and agriculture industries.” Trends and outlook McNeill says due to market uncertainty and the price of new equipment, the trend is that customers are looking to sweat their existing assets, even sometimes opting to rebuild their ADTs through the Bell ReMan programme at a fraction of the cost of a new machine. Others are choosing to invest in pre-owned equipment, which requires a reduced capital outlay. “In response, we have launched a global website for
