Road freight body National Road Carriers Association held its 88th annual general meeting at Auckland’s Alexandra Park on Friday, July 21, with discussions around advocacy progress plus a board refresh including the appointment of Ian Newey as new chairman.
At last year’s AGM, chief executive Justin Tighe-Umbers outlined how the organisation was planning to undertake its business transformation and deliver on strategic objectives such as consolidating industry relationships, growing our advocacy capability, building an increased media presence, and promoting positive cross-industry collaboration.
“You could say our goals were ambitious to say the least,” says Tighe-Umbers. “We are setting a high standard for ourselves; we have to make sure we are delivering to our members needs in a very demanding operating environment.”
Investing in member support
James Perrin joined NRC as chief operating officer tasked with delivering the business transformation strategy. This strategy is about investing in the organisations people and systems with the end goal to be improving member support processes.
“We’ve added a membership coordinator to the commercial transport specialist (CTS) team,” says Tighe-Umbers. “And we are investing in a new member support system with a cloud-based platform. This will deliver a richer view of member’s profiles, service offerings, content subscriptions and much more.
A website refresh is planned for later this year, and we continue to invest in our commercial partnerships, making sure that members receive the best discounts possible, while delivering value and growth to our commercial partners in return for their support.”
According to Tighe-Umbers, this means members can expect to hear from NRC a bit more. The team will be carrying out regular membership ‘health checks’ to ensure operators are maximising membership value.
“For some operators it may simply be about making sure you are accessing the best fuel, tyre, insurance and mobile phone discounts and services. For others it may be that technical, compliance or business advice is needed.
“We know many transport businesses are under pressure in these tight financial times. We are seeing increasing demand for NRC’s cost modelling tool as it provides measurable clarity on the state of an operators’ business helping inform decision in a way that can make a real difference to the bottom line.”
National presence
Expanding advocacy capability has been the second area of strategic focus for NRC.
“We need to be present in Wellington, and throughout the country, with a strong and respected voice that is listened to by policy makers. This year we have invested in our presence in Wellington, and this is delivering strong results,” says Tighe-Umbers.
“NRC is now regularly sought to provide expert assistance to multiple ministries and agencies, and publicly, mainstream media frequently call on us to comment on industry matters.”
“The transport and freight sectors are facing a raft of complex changes. Examples include the redesign of the road funding model and RUC changes, time of use or congestion charges, emissions reduction plans for the heavy vehicle fleet, and long-term infrastructure build plans with the Roads of National and Regional Significance,” says Tighe-Umbers.
“NRC’s role as a trusted industry voice is to provide an expert view of the impact these initiatives will have on the freight task and road transport industry. There is a lot coming at us, and we are responding by building up our advocacy and expertise capability.”
And it doesn’t stop there.
“NRC has gained real momentum, and we fully plan to make the most of these gains as we head into the next financial year,” concludes Tighe-Umbers.
“Part of the success is ensuring each year we review the Board and open opportunities to members to help drive the organisation forward.”
Board refresh
This year NRC welcomes Ian Newey into the role of chairman, Glen MacKay as deputy chair and Corey Burnett as owner-driver representative.
Incumbent chairman John Baillie will continue as a board member, and NRC has also welcomed Bipendra Ram to the board.
Bipendra is a long-term member of NRC and has been in the industry for the last 20 years. He has come from starting with one vehicle to his present fleet size of 20 vehicles ranging from HPMV line haul units to inter-city metro delivery trucks.
Bipendra’s company, Ram Logistics, contracts to key customers such as NZ Post, Foodstuffs, and Goodman Fielder.
“On behalf of NRC we are thrilled to welcome Bipendra to the board and I’m personally looking forward to working closely with him over the coming months,” Tighe-Umbers says.
