Why tractor dealers will be able to sell you an Ineos Grenadier

Although some 25% of the Ineos network are not established OEM operations, Pearson is expecting comparable standards of customer service and care, given that agricultural dealers often sell equipment priced in the hundreds of thousands of pounds.

“Our agricultural dealers are highly sophisticated and super experienced,” adds Pearson, “and are used to sending technicians into the field to repair equipment at short notice, often with their own fleet of vans.”

Ineos hasn’t said how much investment is required of each dealer, though a 2/3 car showroom added onto an existing property is typically a multi-£100,000 investment, not millions. “For all our partners it works from a financial point of view, adding a franchise to a building they’ve already got is incredibly efficient and everyone wins.”

The agricultural dealers are significant commercial hubs, too, combining equipment sales with countryside supplies and groceries. “Chandlers in Lincolnshire is a great example of that,” he adds, “they have a Ssangyong showroom, a pick-up business, an agricultural business and Massey Ferguson sales, but are also a country store business with animal feed, groceries, and 60 to 80 people going through there every single day. So being linked with other businesses completely works for us. Finding new footfall was a lesson learned at McLaren, too.”

Ineos is prepared to be flexible and practical about the design of its dealerships, too. There’s an ideal set-up — with a computer image of what that might look like — but the design is modular to allow dealers to choose elements that work for them.

At the international scale, for example, Ineos is not forcing dealers in Africa and the Mid East to buy, at high cost, centrally-specified items like sofas from a UK supplier to keep a rigid appearance at every site around the world. “In fact, we’re actively encouraging a local signature,” he adds.

Shopping local might well be the secret of success for Ineos, selling a specialised 4x4 right into the market where its customers are clamouring for a new rugged vehicle to fill a market niche that evidence suggests is ripe and ready for picking.

Dealer Case Study: Compass Tractors, Bridgwater

“When Ineos came along, we were very quick to link into them. We have lots of customers who are ex-Defender and we’ve a lot of clients looking for a rugged replacement for that vehicle,” said Justin Nichols, managing director of Compass Tractors.

“The Grenadier is the boss’s car, while pick-ups are the working vehicles."

Compass stepped into vehicle sales three years ago, adding an Isuzu dealership to its immaculate site close to Junction 24 of the M5.

“When we’re at full chat with the full range of Grenadiers, we’ll probably be doing about 200 a year, that’s more than we’ll do Isuzus,” he added.

In a typical year Compass does £35m of business – about three times the size of an average OEM car dealer – from sales of agricultural brands like Fendt, JCB, Krone and Amazone. Its most expensive item is a £600,000 forager, which cuts and processes grass into animal feed.

Because such equipment is a critical business tool, Nichols is confident Compass can meet service and customer standards in the car industry. “When a machine like a forager hits a problem, we have to fix it 24/7, in the field. And it’s not all mechanical work. Modern machinery has diagnostics so we often see a problem developing before it actually happens.”