Driving efficiency: Chris Roberts & Darren Riva talk energy and business strategy

As the UK energy crisis focuses business thinking on a more sustainable future, consultant Chris Roberts and renewables expert Darren Riva addressed the subject of efficiency and sustainability on the AM News Show podcast.

In the latest episode of the automotive retail sector’s monthly podcast series former Drive Motor Retail and Cambria director Roberts and Journey Energy Solutions’ Riva tackled a number of subjects in conversation with AM editor Tim Rose and managing editor Tom Sharpe.

Among the subjects tackled are:

• Cutting overheads and securing your electricity supply in a volatile period for the energy sector

• Readying your business for a future dominated by electric vehicles (EV)

•Planning ahead to generate growth and avoid staff burnout

•Opportunities in a new era of aftersales

Commenting on car retail’s ongoing energy challenges, Riva said: “We are no longer in a place where we’re going to pay 16p per kilowatt hour for electricity. Those times are in the dim and distant past

“Over the last 18 months the fact that (car retailers’) op-ex has gone through the roof has definitely flipped the focus back to pounds saved and obviously, in a lot of cases hundreds, of thousands of pounds of savings can be made each month by managing usage on-site.

“The story will go very quickly away from cost and that investment to make your business secure is potentially better done sooner than when somebody else has taken all your power.”

On the need for car retailers to plan ahead after the short-term wins of the post-COVID trading period, Roberts said: “You get up in a morning and you’ve got to make the day happen, make the week happen, hit the numbers, make the money, and it consumes people massively.

“In a lot of business’ I’m involved with the teams are all so lean it is 24/7 and you do worry about burnout, to be fair, because the senior management teams are trying to do all things.

“However, you can’t ignore that fact that you have to have a strategy for the business and the owners and shareholders should be thinking about that at board level and thinking what should my business look like because the problem you have, I think, is complacency.

“We’ve had two great years but things do tip over.”