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Historically, truck manufacturers have not been that great at selling spare parts - especially for competitors' vehicles. But Daf has been trying to address that through its TRP business. Trevor Mitchell is parts sales and marketing director for the company, and he is responsible for truck-parts sales. As with most manufacturers, Daf sells components for its own vehicles through its dealer network. Seven years ago, however, it launched TRP - an all-makes parts business. Mitchell says this was  to support Daf customers who also run other makes.

TRP sees its competition not necessarily as other truck manufacturers, but the parts factors. And that was a huge shift for Daf. "We had to alter our behaviour," Mitchell explains. "When somebody comes in [to a dealer], they will give a chassis number and it's easy to identify the part. We had to retrain our people to act like a factor, be quick and nimble and offer added-value services to customers."

The other thing Daf altered, he adds, is the frequency of its deliveries. Drops to the customer were made only once a day, but now, the average Daf dealer in the UK has about five delivery vans and will go out to customers three times a day, as the factors do. Indeed, the biggest change, according to Mitchell, was the parts sales team going out and competing against them for business.

In recent years, TRP has had an online catalogue because, Mitchell says, websites are the future for ordering. However, it's also gone  back to producing a paper version. "Look at the traditional home-shopping companies," he says. "They still have a paper catalogue, even if most of their orders are placed online. Customers do not always want the electronic way, so we've invested in that." The two products have been designed to complement each other.

In the know

To increase its appeal even further, TRP has launched a workshop-planning programme for Daf customers called Connect. It enables users to employ a Vosa-approved system to manage their records. Vehicles can be booked in, servicing schedules can be checked and, because it's linked directly to the dealer, Daf can monitor parts usage. "They might not use ours, but the system provides an opportunity for us to offer to replenish parts automatically. We believe it's a unique selling point for Daf," Mitchell says.

The factors have spent many years enjoying the success of manufacturers' truck sales, and despite Mitchell's optimism about TRP, he admits it has taken longer to alter the ethos toward the new enterprise than he had expected. "I thought it would take four years to change the mindset within the company and its dealers, but we are now in the fifth year and we're just beginning to turn the corner," he reveals. "Today, our all-makes business represents 15% of our parts sales. We want it to reach 40%."

Because 50% of Daf's truck sales are to fleets, it has created a package to sell parts to those customers and one area in which Mitchell believes the company does add value is by providing a single point for invoicing: "We collect all the invoices and give them only one a month, simplifying administration for them. And, of course, we get a lot of management information from that process, such as which parts they've used for what vehicle, and how often."

Parts are sourced from Daf's Leyland warehouse or Eindhoven distribution centre. "TRP gets 98% first-pick availability in the warehouse and if a part is ordered before 6pm, we can get it to the workshop by 8am the next day," he says. And it's that kind of attention to detail that Mitchell hopes will keep the business growing and developing into a larger section of Daf's overall presence in the market.