NEW HRN Group managing director Mark Proudfoot has revealed his aim is to double the firm’s sales figures within a five-year period.
Mark recently made the switch from a senior role at Molson Group to join the multi-depot family business, which has made significant inroads in the Scottish construction industry.
In recent years, HRN has become the dealer for Kubota, as well as Hyundai through sister company Agritrac.
Mark thanked Jonathan Wilson, a founding partner in Molson, for bringing him into the Molson business. “Before leaving Molson, Jonathan was a great mentor to me and remains a good friend,” Mark told Project Plant.
He revealed the opportunity to join HRN came ‘out of the blue’ and that he was settled at Molson following five successful years there. However, the chance to join the family-run company and once again work with the Kubota brand proved too good an opportunity to turn down.
“Kubota is a product I know well,” Mark said. “When I joined Molson Young Plant as sales director, Brian Young was at the helm and was instrumental in taking the Kubota excavator to market in Scotland. We’re working very closely in partnership with Kubota in three separate phases. We’ve got groundcare, construction, and also deal with the agricultural side. It’s exciting that it’s the 50th year that Kubota have been in Europe. There’s real longevity in the product.”
Mark added that in his discussions with owner Stuart Barclay and construction sales director Ian Burton, it became clear that family values lie at the heart of the HRN business model. This, he added, is an important factor for customers.
“Customers get a very quick response,” Mark explained. “We pride ourselves on trying to deal with any challenges head-on. We’re not bureaucratic in any way. I said in my conversations that I want to double the business within a five-year period. Obviously, that’s aspirational, yet hopefully achievable and something that we’ve got to aim for. We have an excellent, established footprint within our markets.”
Mark paid tribute to the team at HRN for the progress made in establishing itself as a major player in the construction equipment market in recent years, and for the ‘seamless’ way it has taken on the ‘market-leading’ Kubota product and achieved success with it. Under his stewardship, he intends for the company to stand out through excellent customer service and prompt delivery times.
“I think we all agree that the market is demanding now, due to interest rates still relatively high. The way we stand out is on service. We have got a great parts delivery, a strong engineering team, and stock on the ground. Price is important but I believe service is key to our organisation going forward.”
