Many of Barloworld’s customers across all types of industry have seen deteriorating trading conditions which have consequently reduced revenues. In recent weeks we have seen the demise of Woolworths, MFI and serious ramifications of the recession on most of our customers particularly in the automotive industry.  

Therefore in response to this decline in the UK economy and associated materials handling market Barloworld Handling will be looking to reduce costs and waste in its operations while at the same time to introducing products and processes to improve value added services to all its customers. Changes are being effected to streamline service and back office functions in order to improve the company’s ability to provide competitive solutions and to reduce costs.  

Barloworld is attempting to minimise redundancies through various measures but inevitably some job losses are expected. Staff affected will receive the necessary support through consultation to make the transition easier. Geoff Tucker, UK Managing Director, comments “During these difficult economic times we must become stronger, more efficient and ever more focussed on delivering service excellence to our customers. Many of our customers will be looking at doing the same thing in their operations so we must ensure that we are in a position to really add value to each one of them.  These structural changes are being co-ordinated so there will be no disruption to our service delivery and we will emerge stronger and more resilient from it”.Barloworld provides a complete range of counterbalance and warehousing equipment with superior support, advice and value added services through its network of 1,100 support staff including 600 engineers nationwide.  

Barloworld Handling has 80 years experience in the material handling market. The company is part of Barloworld Ltd, a £3Billion turnover global enterprise, which is listed on the South African stock exchange. Barloworld operates Hyster forklift truck dealerships in Belgium, Holland, South East USA and Southern Africa in addition to the UK.