FLOORING
TRAFFIK’S NEW DIRECTION
Tim Wood sits down with Howard O’Brien, the new Managing Director of Träffik, to find out how things have changed in 2013 for the flooring refurbishment specialists.
TIM WOOD (TW): You’ve been with Träffik since it was known as the Contract Maintenance Group (CMG). How did you become involved?
HOWARD O’BRIEN (HO): It has a lot to do with my friendship
with Julian Stoneman (Träffik’s CEO). Julian became a partner in CMG around 20 years ago, when it was known as the Carpet Maintenance Group. That company developed over time to create strong relationships with carpet manufacturers. We met in 2005, at the Cleaning Show. I’d just started up a company called Handl Solutions Limited, which imported anti-slip products from Canada to treat hard floors. Ironically, we met on the first day of Handle Solutions’ launch. We built distribution through CMG and in 2007 Julian bought the business from me.
TW: So why the rebranding to Träffik?
HO: We recognised that we had a brand, a lot like many other contract
maintenance businesses, that needed modernising. We’d moved into markets like anti-static, anti- stain, anti-colour and PU, as well as anti-slip, to develop a range of products that allowed us to maintain old floors and make them sustainable. We knew we could be an authority on sustainable flooring with a recognisable brand. After much thought, we came up with the name Träffik and a memorable logo. It was necessary because, as you can
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see, what we stand for is somewhat different from what CMG stood for.
You took over as Managing Director in February this year. How has the day to day running of the
business changed? We’ve changed a few things, actually. As well as a bit of restructuring, we’re looking to extend our sales and marketing operation, we’ve taken on more products, we’ve cotinued to develop our close relationships with service partners, and we’ve made the jump to online work platforms.
What led you to the online
work platforms? Basically, we’re making everything transparent as a business. Typically, a business will rely on emails and telephones for communication. I want to get rid of internal emails in time and our new work platform will allow us to do that. We’ve worked with Chester University to develop a system that keeps everything transparent so that the guys in the
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