Hranco taking care of business (cont.)
and team-building activities and expanded profit- sharing opportunities to its workers. Hranco also looks to build a whole program of personal and professional development around each of its employees to make sure they really feel part of the company.
“We really push our employees to buy into the company, to the team goal. There's a lot more to it than wage. And what attracts people, what keeps people, 99 per cent of the time salary is fifth or sixth on the list. It’s the other benefits... It’s making a good atmosphere where a person is happy to come to work in the morning. Because you can make all the money in the world, but if you hate your job you're not going to stay.”
Cody’s dad Larry had him helping out on the shop floor as soon as he was old enough to do so. So he has an appreciation for the complex work his employees do every day. He speaks knowingly about the various aspects of production as he tours visitors and clients around the shop bay. One gets the sense of a young man strongly invested in his future here at Hranco Industries. He speaks proudly about the new automatic lift system installed to deal with the heavy beams Hranco now works with, an innovation which saves hours of forklifting and moving pieces into position for cutting.
The expansion of the company business into custom heavy beam manufacture necessitated the investment in a new automated lift and cut system, explains Cody, but it was also out of consideration for their long-term employees.
“What it does for us is we saw a need and we can’t find enough people. So how do we make the best use of these guys that we have with their skill set? We need to take out the drilling of holes and the layout. We need to take out the repetitive
Staff at Hranco Industries work on a number of services including welding and fabrication, sandblasting and painting, heavy duty mechanical, and dangerous goods carrier inspection.
stuff that gets boring. Basically we program it in the system, send it into the machine and the guys out (on the automatic lift) adjust the material and it goes through. It’s all computerized. It will lay out; it will drill the holes; it will cut the ends and everything, so that when that beam comes to the shop floor the guys weld it and put the pieces together.”
After exchanging a few friendly words with his employees in the beam assembly area, Cody heads across the street to Hranco’s heavy duty mechanical shop and paint bay. There are company trucks, school buses and other over-sized vehicles all in various states of disassembly and repair lined up along the shop floor, and a whole group more waiting outside once these are finished.
Cody explains Hranco originally started its own machine shop to provide a place for its company trucks to be repaired. However, once word got out that Hranco had such a capability customers began calling, and very soon Hranco was expanding its existing facility to accommodate more and larger vehicles. It is the same with the huge paint bay Hranco now operates in the same facility.
For Cody, it’s what his family business is all about: Doing high quality work, filling the niches that no other company fills, and being ready to go where the market dictates when customers come calling.
“You either make the next step or go home. Being an independent business, it gives you that edge. Some customers prefer to work with an independent contractor, independent shop, which gives them that extra level of service. We’re quality-based. We do high quality work. We’re not going to be the cheapest in town, or in the global market. But it’s going to be done on time, and it’s going to be done right.” ■
Big
deals on the horizon
By TIM KALINOWSKI
Over the last few years there has been a general increase in merger and acquisition activities (M & A) in southeast Alberta. Companies like Spitz Sunflower Seeds, South Rock, Exalta Transport Corp., Joyline Transport and numerous southeast Alberta oil and gas service companies have all been bought out by larger companies.
Prof. Bob Schulz of the Haskayne School of Business at the University of Calgary says this M & A activity is not occurring for any one reason. He says there are probably five or six trends which have to be taken into account to understand what’s driving the market-place:
An aging baby-boom population which has a lot of business owners looking for an exit strategy so they can retire.
Large companies looking to consolidate their industries by buying out competitors.
Companies holding huge cash reserves with the uncertain stock market, and looking to spend it on niche markets — thus buying growth instead of building it.
National companies in various countries, but especially China, trying to buy the supply chain their nations will need in the future.
Aggressive investor groups pushing into slower- growth, publicly-traded companies, forcing these companies into an inflated rate of capitalization.
“The reasons for each acquisition are different,” explains Schulz. “In southern Alberta, with gas prices so low, a lot of smaller gasfield service companies are running out of money; they’re going broke. So a larger company says we got some cash. We’ll wait until you’re really out of money then we’ll put a bid in, and you won’t have much in the way of a choice.”
Schulz points to the Encana and Nexen buyouts as examples of this trend. However, he says other southern Alberta trends fall under general consolidation: Larger companies seeking to
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