David Shipman: ‘Act now to avoid stagnation’
30 March 2010
David Shipman, chairman of AFI-Uplift, one of the UK's largest access rental companies, said the powered access industry needed to do much more to promote the safety benefits of powered access and pledged £25000 towards a national promotional campaign if other UK companies contributed £75000.
Speaking at the recent IPAF Summit in London, Mr Shipman said the industry needed to get work together to promote the industry in the face of a crisis that has seen demand dropping by 15-25% from the peak in 2008; rates falling by 10-20%; and little prospect of a rapid improvement.
"I think activity will not recover any time soon. I think pressure on hire rates will intensify, and I think revenues will continue to fall, albeit at a slower rate", said Mr Shipman. "It all adds up to a period of prolonged stagnation, if we do nothing."
In an impassioned speech, Mr Shipman said the way forward was for the industry to become more professional and to promote the safety benefits of access equipment. "Good safety is good business. This presents us with an opportunity...we need to grasp this point and promote this aspect with one voice, the IPAF voice."
Mr Shipment suggested four key points of a common approach to promoting the market: a greater emphasis on operator training, including training of managers; a similar focus on familiarisation; greater standardisation of products (operator controls, emergency decent controls, etc); and promotional efforts to increase the size of the powered access market.
"We need to become more professional...My concern is not our company's share of the pie, it's the size of the pie. We can only increase the size of the pie by working closer together."
He said that IPAF needed to take the lead in a promotional effort, and said his own company, AFI-Uplift would donate £25000 to a national promotional campaign if other IPAF members contributed another £75000.
"There aren't many industries that have our story to tell", concluded Mr Shipman, "IPAF needs to take the lead - we've got to make everything happen a lot quicker."
