Cruise control

From a schoolteacher to a car salesman to becoming group CEO of two of the UK's top car businesses to general manager of Dubai's Gargash Enterprises, Richard Barber has travelled a long way. Lorraine Chandler finds out what keeps him in the driver's seat.

Richard Barber is a tough man to pin down. When I finally get an appointment with him, I am a little dismayed to find that his open-door policy allows at least half the staff of Gargash Enterprises to drop in regularly while I try to squeeze some information out of him.

Yet, there are advantages to watching him work. He doesn't beat about the bush when showing his displeasure and is oblivious to my presence when he berates an employee over the phone.

"I want to know why it didn't happen, and I want that information on my desk in an hour. Drop anything else you're doing," he says in his crisp, 'no-nonsense' English public school voice.

Barber is tremendously self-possessed, from his neat hair to his spotlessly polished shoes, and it is obvious that he weighs and composes his thoughts carefully before verbalising them.

But then Barber was one of the most prominent figures in the British car industry. He was group CEO of Dutton Forshaw Motor Group and managing director of the Cowie Group motor division, both in the top 10 UK motor businesses.

He went on to be managing director of Caverdale and became the group CEO when the Quicks Group purchased Caverdale.

He transformed Quicks into a multi-branded national operation with 42 car dealerships representing 15 franchises, 3 truck dealerships, the largest Ford parts distribution business in Europe and a turnover of £600 million (Dh3,820 million).

Yet Barber has always been known to have a maverick streak with some offbeat approaches to marketing. While working for Caverdale, he boosted sales with an extremely effective radio campaign using blues music.

Another time, he hired a choir to launch a sales campaign. No sir, no one could accuse him of being conventional.

Despite his business success, the 53-year-old has never married. When asked why, it's as if the idea never really occurred to him. Then he admits he's just too involved in his career to devote enough time to a family.

When questioned about his social life, he says he has only a few friends, loves solitary sports, and, in his own words, is "inner-directed". But after saying that, he goes on to talk about his sense of humour and empathy for others.

Barber has earned a reputation for driving both himself and his employees as far as possible. At Quicks, he wanted to make sure that his staff sold as many cars as possible before the annual September registration plate change, so no salesperson was allowed to go on holiday between June 20 and August 31.

At the time, he says, any gripes the employees had soon disappeared when they saw their pay packages.

Yet Barber takes pride in being a fair employer. He tries to include all his employees in the running of the business and is grooming a team of managers who will one day be capable of taking over from him.

Since becoming general manager at Gargash Enterprises four years ago sales have increased 25 per cent a year from 2,250 cars in 2001 to 4,000 cars by March this year. He achieved this by making the company more customer-oriented and efficient.

Barber enjoys the day-to-day business of selling one of the world's most prestigious cars. After all, he joined the motor business because he loves cars.

I
I am a ... workaholic. I'm very intense and driven. I'm a perfectionist and I'm very keen to operate within formal structures and with the utmost integrity.

I believe in ... giving a 100 per cent in whatever I do. I will work whatever hours my job requires, including meeting people in the evening.

I drive my staff and myself hard.

I care about the job too much and tend to have just a few friends. I love swimming and cycling. I swim four times a week (which helps) burn off stress. (If I didn't do that) I'd probably bottle it all up.

I think a good salesperson must have honesty, integrity and empathy with the customer. I'm good at sales because people feel I genuinely mean what I say. If a car was not good for someone, I'd tell him so directly.

I'm fairly self-sufficient and inner-directed. I have a keen sense of humour, but most people don't seem to get it. I also have a realistic set of values.

I sometimes get frustrated when things don't happen as I want them to. But that's something I can use to my advantage in this industry, by letting my staff know that I'm frustrated and by explaining the cause.

I think the best-run motor businesses in Europe are family concerns.

Me
Me and my dad:
I come from a very academic background and by the time I was nine, I was reading Shakespeare and Dickens.

My family would have liked me to do something less commercial than going into the motor business. My father is a university head of civil engineering. He's had a huge influence on my life.

Now 87, he has (set) an example of honest, integrity, constancy and clear thinking. He was highly decorated in the Second World War and I admire him tremendously. He never changes direction when he decides (on a) course and he has given me a constant message on how to conduct myself properly.

He has taught me to be conscious of other people's feelings, and I've also learned that when you decide on a route, you stick to it.

Me on education and teaching:
I didn't start off in the car business. I studied education at the School of Physical Education in London. A definite attraction was the fact that there were 230 girls and four guys in my year.

As a boy, I attended the Royal Grammar School in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne (the second-best academic school in the UK) but I ended up teaching physical education and English at Central London Secondary School in one of the city's most deprived boroughs.

It was a change (coming) from an extremely disciplined educational environment to a very undisciplined one. Living in London on a teacher's salary was difficult and I stayed in someone else's apartment because I couldn't afford my own.

I enjoyed teaching, although it was stressful in such a rough area, with a class of 40 students who didn't want to be there. It wasn't unusual to see guns around.

I think teaching in the UK has become a bit of a joke. It's far too liberal. I think kids need guidelines, and they've got it absolutely right here in the UAE.

A lot of people in the UK start families without really thinking about it. Many of my students came from broken homes and constantly tried to 'push the envelope' to see how much they could get away with.

I believe no one should have children unless he can give 100 per cent of himself to his family and I know I never could have done that, which may be why I have never had children.

Me and the car business:
I always had an interest in cars, so after about a year of teaching I applied for a job as a car salesman for BMC (Barclay Motor Company). I was one of only two successful applicants out of the 350 who had applied for the job.

It was a change, but I think if you can manage 40 15-year-olds at a rough London school, then you can sell anything to anyone.

I did well and after a year there, I was approached by Octave Botnar, the UK importers of Datsun (now Nissan). Within another year, I was appointed manager of Datsun Baker Street, the company's most important business.

Since then I've had various senior management roles in the retail motor industry, (with) 20 years of fairly intense experience at the UK's biggest businesses. My last position (in the UK) was as group CEO of Quicks Group PLC.

I've been group CEO twice; in both cases I was promoted internally. I think anyone in the car industry would admit my CV is pretty impressive.

But what I enjoyed most were what you might call 'lesser' jobs. I loved the hourly interaction of managing dealerships and I missed that as a group CEO.

I found my work was more about finance than the motor trade. I was too distant from the actual business of selling cars, which is what I'm really good at and what I enjoy.

When I was working for Perry Group PLC in the late 1980s they were planning to go to the United States. I was to head it, but that never happened. Then I was headhunted by Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz to go to South Africa in 1995, but I didn't take it because of the political turmoil.

I visited Dubai in 1999 and really liked it. Later I met with Dr Anwar (Gargash) of Gargash Enterprises and started working for him in October 2001.

I was happy to manage a company of a reasonable size on a day-to-day basis.

I've introduced a lot of the good industry changes from Europe, while rejecting some of the negative retail aspects. One of the first things I did was install a world-class dealer management system that took us from being a good Middle Eastern business to being a world-class organisation.

I broke down communication barriers between different departmental managers and adopted a more holistic approach to day-to-day management.

The motor trade around the world is infamous for poor customer service, which is often due to poor communication between sales, service and parts departments, so I looked at improving that.

I've made Gargash Enterprises much more customer-oriented. I have implemented a customer satisfaction programme that measures satisfaction. We ask customers to fill in a written survey, but we don't just depend on that.

We have a call centre so we can call the customers who don't fill in the survey. Most importantly, we drive the findings back to the source.

We have two sets of stakeholders:
our customers and the Mercedes-Benz brand. Our strategy is not to 'cherry pick' the brand but to sell everything from small cars to trucks. We make a point of operating only within our market.

Mercedes-Benz has expanded its offering over the last 12 years, so we've been able to (expand its) share of the market in Dubai and the Northern Emirates. The average age of a Mercedes owner here is much lower than the global age.

Myself
They say beauty is skin deep, but what about cars? Is it fair to choose a car on its appearance?
In most cases, looks do reflect performance where cars are concerned, so yes, you can judge a book by its cover.

Do you think a car embodies something pure and unattainable in real life?
Yes, a car is a bit like a watch in the mechanical excellence it offers. With a good car you can be sure of reliability and integrity.

People used to spend time looking after their cars, but now they just get the garage to do everything. Do you think they're missing out on anything?
If you go back 25 years, people would buy a ... car and work on it themselves, but nowadays everything is electronic so you just can't (work) on your car any more. The cars on the market now are so much more reliable and safer too. There's not a bad car manufacturer around today.

If age was a speedometer and you could turn it back, what age would you like to go back to?
I'm very happy at the age I am now (53) but I have to say that I still think I'm 25.

You're someone who likes to be in control. Do you like to be in the driving seat even in your personal life?
No. When I'm not working, I like to relax with friends and let someone else do the 'driving'.

If your career hadn't gone the direction it did, is there anything else you would have liked to do?
I would have liked to be a photographer, but I'm delighted to be in the motor industry. It's the most extraordinary business in the world, one that has opened so many doors for me and given me the opportunity to go around the world - twice.

Now I'm working in a very dynamic and growing market ? It's a very good place to be.