Conti360° Fleet Services celebrated the official opening of its newly rebranded suite of offices on the 12th December, following a 2-year integration project to bring everything under one roof at Bandvulc’s Lee Mill site.
Opening the event Bandvulc Managing Director Arthur Gregg took the opportunity to praise staff for their hard work in making the business such a success since its acquisition by the Continental Tyre Group in July 2016. He said that staff in the integrated company were now working as “one identity, one team, working together. “Now, two and a half years in, we’ve created more jobs, we’re bringing in more production and sales are growing. We knew Bandvulc would be a great acquisition but it’s actually turned out to be a fantastic acquisition,” he said.
Bandvulc is now recognised as one of the best acquisitions of the Continental Tyre division over the last 10 years. Arthur said progress had been swift; the Conti360° front office moved to Ivybridge in December 2016, the back office followed a year later and the 24-hour Breakdown Service in February 2018.
“This September we merged the Conti360° Fleet Services Network with Bandvulc’s Key Partners under a unified 360° brand, giving customers unrivalled aftercare services across the UK. The two sales teams then joined together in October. Joining the two offices together to make one is the natural next succession in the integration plan. I think it will further endorse the culture we are trying to create of one team. It is no longer ‘them and us’, it’s ‘we’.
“The C360° office is now one of the largest fleet management companies in the UK. With all the assets of systems, brands, re-treads, whatever, there is no reason why that should not continue to grow.”
Arthur then welcomed Okan Tamer, who takes over as Conti UK MD from David Smith, who is now focusing on his international role as Head of Channel Management Distribution and Region North Europe. Okan, who joined from the Turkish market, said he was impressed by what he had seen and the people he had met during his visit. He thanked everyone for their warm welcome and said he anticipated more success for the Lee Mill team. “From what I have seen so far, the production process looks excellent with high quality products, but more importantly, it’s the very dedicated, professional people who are behind that,” he said.
“At the beginning of this year you won the tyre award from Continental for all of your integration achievements in 2017 – the ‘For One Another’. I would like to underline this because this is unique and you should really be proud of it. Not all the companies of Continental get this award; it is because of your success in the transition period which was really unique and we see the results today. Having you on board I am very confident we will have further successes with the new combined forces of Continental and Bandvulc together. I am very much looking forward to sharing many more successes together and maybe getting another tyre award in future.”
