Episode 13

Moving Matters with Tony Tickner of The Eurogroup

00:00:00
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00:43:46

January 14th, 2021

43 mins 46 secs

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About this Episode

In this episode, Tony Tickner, Managing Director of The Eurogroup, discusses how he began in the industry some 32 years ago, forming the company with a friend from quite a large freight forwarding company.

We discover that Tony started with general cargo before realising there was very little money to be made, and switching to become a destination agent, handling household goods for the likes of Four Winds Middle East.

We discover The Eurogroup operate from 3 depots, with an additional 2 that are purely storage only, running approximately 40 vehicles, employ 44 staff, and that they do not provide domestic or commercial moves, they purely do household moves to and from Europe and Internationally.

We discuss Tony’s challenges, his biggest personal one being his dyslexia, while his biggest commercial challenge was being recognised within the industry for their corporate accounts, and discuss how Tony changed the tariff structure for unloading deepsea containers.

We discover that Tony wouldn’t change anything from his past but does highlight that in the early days he didn’t truly understand his costs, something he definitely does today!

We discuss Tony’s high point of being in the industry, and discover he has many; moving high profile celebrities, being chosen as the management company for one of the largest contracts in the UK, and that he was chosen to be a joint supplier for the drawdown of personnel out of Germany for the MOD back in 2015, moving 2,500 families over a 12 week period. But his real high point was being asked to become BAR President.

We discuss the Movers Trading Club, of which Tony is the current Chairman and discover what it provides to its membership and how to join such an illustrious group.

Being the immediate past President of the BAR, we discover just how much Tony enjoyed undertaking that role, yet found it challenging at times.

We discover that one thing Tony would change in the industry is regulation, but this time at a governmental level!

We discover that the advice he would give to a young Tony would be to know your costings and not to be a busy fool.

We discuss where Tony see’s the industry in 5 years, and on the shipping side he does think we’re in the biggest transition the industry has ever been in as shipments are decreasing in size as we live in a more disposable world and carry so much information in a digital rather than a physical form.

We discover that outside of the business Tony never truly switches off. However, he is a car fanatic and is currently rebuilding a 40 year old Suzuki Jeep, which he tracked down in Ibiza to then discover it was sold by his father’s dealership in the UK back in the day! Being a car fanatic Tony is an avid fan of F1 and loves off-road racing, something he may look to get back into.

And as always we end Moving Matters with a funny story regarding the shipment for a VIP of a really big blue chip company, a polaroid camera and a statue of Eros!

Enjoy!

Links to The Eurogroup: