BY Neil Pattemore Running a vehicle repair business is never a simple task – all those awkward customers, and sometimes staff, not to mention your competitors around the corner, key suppliers, technical training and all the various tools and equipment needed, to mention but a few. However, when all your planning and hard work come together, your business succeeds because your team work hard to ensure that you provide a great service that is valued by your customers and the final result is that you are profitable. Great job! Key elements What I haven’t mentioned are those key elements that are outside of your control, but which directly or indirectly impact your business. The list may be longer than you think and probably includes not just variable costs, such as when a war impacts energy costs so greatly, but closer to home in every sense of the word, are those elements where compliance is required, but that which you need to comply with are outside of your control. Local planning restrictions, parking constraints or business rates are all critical and can be decided without any consultation. Perhaps more concerningly, the UK government can implement legislation that directly impacts your business without consulting with you. The most recent example is a very detailed document that amends a whole range of legislative requirements for vehicle type approval. At this point, I imagine that your eyes are glazing over and your brain has simply asked ‘why should I worry about this?’ Let me explain, as this is critical to your ability to diagnose, service, repair or maintain your customers’ vehicles – which is rather fundamental to the success of your business model! The automotive aftermarket requires access to a wide range of technical information, tools, training and spare parts, but all of this originates directly, or indirectly from the vehicle manufacturer who have their own dealer network, so are not incentivised to support competition from the independent repair sector. Critical A quick history lesson is needed here of why legislation is so critical for the Aftermarket. In the 1980s, it was a simple issue of interpreting the first electronic systems’ blink codes, followed in the 1990s as vehicles became more technically advanced, with the ability to access and use the data and DTCs as the basis for repair and maintenance. This had become an increasingly key issue and the legislator needed to act to ensure that effective competition was still possible. This was created as part of the European Motor Vehicle Block Exemption Regulation (MV-BER), which provided an exemption from Competition Law requirements when main dealers had geographical monopolies when selling vehicles, but also supported competition between authorised and independent workshops. This came into force in 14 AFTERMARKET JUNE 2023 BUSINESS www.aftermarketonline.net IS YOUR BUSINESS APPROVED? Independence is the one of the defining principles of the UK automotive aftermarket; What happens if that freedom is eroded?
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