TCS&D 2018 Exclusive interview with Karol Smoter

Question: Your company’s name is well known in the UK, but for those who are still not familiar with it, can you please tell us more about Myriad.

Answer: My name is Karol Smoter and I’m Operational Director at Myriad. The company was established in 2001 mainly operating from Southampton, UK. We identify ourselves as a parts wholesaler for the Transport Refrigeration sector focussing on replacement components for Carrier and Thermo King units. Components that we supply are maintenance parts, ie., engine spares, condensers and evaporator parts, electric fans, motors, generators, starters, alternators, sensors, body panels, exhaust systems and much, much more. Apart from new items we also cover a range of re-manufactured equipment like compressors, engines and electronics. Our full range will be available on our website soon. We’re currently working closely and supporting a network of companies in most of the European countries. Our operation is accredited by ISO 9001 2015 – the latest quality management system, and prior to that ISO 9001 2008 since 2014.

Question: Myriad replacements components only? Not OEM’s?

Answer: We do question what the OEM is these days? It’s obvious when you own a Carrier or Thermo King unit and you care about maintenance, then having an OEM branded part makes you feel better. Better in terms of quality and reliability, but what you must remember is that the owner of these units and current market trends are heading to savings. Keeping money in the pocket is worth more than a branded part which at the end of the day performs in a very similar way to ours. The choice is yours really. We all know that the majority of the OEM parts these days come from the Asian market. Is that wrong? I don’t think so, but we mainly search and produce in Europe. Our products are made to the same standards as the OEM’s or on a few occasions come from the same places (manufacturers). Quality is important for us, but we don’t have to charge OEM prices for something that’s boxed by the owners of these makes. What matters for our customers is reliability and that’s what we provide them by offering our own parts with a reasonable price tag attached. Our focus is on the aftermarket. Units with no warranty or without any contract maintenance left in place.

Question: What do you mean by your ‘own’ parts?

Answer: Everything we supply is branded ‘Myriad’. We’re independent, not associated with Carrier or Thermo King. However, over years of building stable foundations for our business we became attractive to other original equipment manufacturers like American “Carlisle”, Italian “Comex” and Japanese “Valeo” companies. At some point, these brands were or will be OEM providers. In these cases, our own product lines like belts, fan motors or new compressors are branded alongside their names, as for example, Myriad Transport Refrigeration Heavy Duty Belts by Carlisle.

Question: Very interesting. What about other similar businesses to your own in the UK?

Answer: Competitors you mean? We’re trying to build our brand by knowing our customer’s needs and always being a step ahead. In my opinion, without being over complimentary to ourselves, there is no other company in the UK market providing similar services to ours, bearing in mind that most of them are on our customer list anyway! We’re building our brand on partnerships and we’re only interested in long term relationships.

Question: You’ve mentioned a network of European companies. Can you tell me more about it?

Answer: There are many companies in the UK as well as on the Continent who think and work in a similar way to us, and these are the ones we support on the basis of long term relationships and partnerships. B2B is challenging, you always need to make sure that you meet your clients’ requirements. To support the above, I can tell you that we have now done business in 48 countries worldwide so far. That shows us that borders and language barriers have no limits. We have our own recipe for that and it’s called PPQSS.

Question: PPQSS dot com?

Answer: No, not a dot com yet, but who knows… What is hidden behind these letters are: Price, Performance, Quality, Service, Support. Every time we’re completing a customer questionnaire as part of our ISO quality process, we’ve scored 5 out of 5.

Question: 25,000 products from one location or from your European network?

Answer: 25,000 is the number to remember. If I had to be 100% specific, then we’re looking at a bit more and to answer your question it’s from two warehouses, both located in Southampton, UK. All the stock held by our partners belong to them so if you wish to buy Myriad branded products in Italy, Portugal, Poland or even Australia, I would refer you to our stockists directly. These numbers are growing regularly, month by month. Only this year we’ve added 59 new product lines across the range.

Question: You’ve mentioned an online platform; can you tell us something more about it?

Answer: Of course, our website is live and operating, but we are also launching something new very soon and that is the platform. One of the biggest challenges in today’s e-commerce technology, apart from being able to serve your customer 24/7, 365 days a year, is to make sure that they want to use it. We have all these options today, but what we’re working on in the background is for it to be more business to business focused. Repeat customers, easiness in finding the parts without engineering knowledge, no glitches, live stocks, accountant access to your detailed information like invoices, debt and much more. We want to be a part of your every day operation. We want to help your inexperienced employees as well as your workshop managers to be able to do their tasks in the quickest possible time. PPQSS again.

Question: Can we officially announce the launch of the new platform?

Answer: Officially, we’re two months away from it. Look out for news of its arrival in the next issues of TCS&D magazine. The next step will be to present it at the 2019 Temperature Controlled Storage & Distribution Show at the East of England Arena, Peterborough on the 25th & 26th June 2019. Our intention is to host a meeting space for all our [partners[(https://www.myriadparts.com/AdditionalDepartments/Footer-Content/INFORMATIONS/Our-Partners), so we can exchange the experience of using the platform, get feedback, comments and suggestions, we want all our partners to have the opportunity to get a ‘real feel’ of the platform.

Myriad will also be hosting a meeting space with a Q&A session in the company of the Directors. Good coffee, freebies and fun for all our partners on the 25th & 26th June 2019.

Everyone welcome.
www.tcsandd.com JULY/AUGUST 2018