INTERVIEW
14
ACCESS, LIFT & HANDLERS
NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2013
system involved companies that would land city
contracts and no company would underbid the
other. Before each bidding process, the “winner”
of the contract was already decided and over
a dozen companies “played by the rules.” The
entire system was overseen by the Mob, who
collected a cash fee from the “winning” bidder.
According to the
Huffington Post
, companies
were technically given the right to bid, but if they
weren’t a part of the “club,” they would never
get a contract nor would they make profit.
At the time I visited Simplex, the entire city
seemed to be under construction. From bridges
and overpasses to roads and highways, barely
a mile would pass before another series of
orange safety cones dotted the horizon. Despite
this activity, Véronneau says the impact of the
inquiry has been far and wide.
“The general inquiry to look at all construction
activity – the infiltration of organized crime in
construction – has been going on for 18 months
now,” Véronneau says. “It has slowed down
demand, especially in Montreal, because that’s
where it started. Everyone is nervous. It isn’t
clean. It’s big and it’s hurting the market.”
Company-wide updates
In order to organize its business, Simplex has
started a major, company-wide overhaul of its
enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. The
company’s prior system tipped the scale at 30
years old and Véronneau wants all systems
up-to-date. The new ERP will streamline
Simplex’s assets, services, departments,
personnel, transport, freight and more.
“We waited too long to update our ERP,”
Véronneau says. “We are now taking this
opportunity to improve our own processes so
we’re doing the best we can. We are using the
best-of-the-best, state-of-the-art equipment.
This is why we stopped opening branches for a
little bit; we wanted to have better processes.”
Simplex is a “few months” into its
reorganization and says it has about six to
eight more to go before it is up and running.
Véronneau says once the system is bug-free,
the entire company (650 people) will be trained
properly on how to utilize the ERP.
“We have heard bad stories of people trying
to implement a new system and it was a
nightmare,” he says. “This is why we hired an IT
specialist – to be sure the system is going to be
well-received.”
Longevity
Simplex is working on “what’s best for us,”
Véronneau says. “We were doing so many
things and it was very successful at one point,
but when it started to be not-so-profitable, we
thought, ‘Well, what are we doing that’s not very
good for us?’”
With the restructuring and re-focusing efforts
now underway, Véronneau and his team,
which includes his son Euclide Véronneau, are
watching the market closely.
“We’ve been in business for 106 years,”
Véronneau says. “We’ve adapted and now it’s
time for us to adapt again.”
While there are no global ambitions at the
helm of these plans – Véronneau laughs when
asked if they want to jump the pond or visit
Brazil – he says the company’s fate lies in the
hands of his children. “My focus is to be very
strong in the Quebec market,” he says. “It’s up
to Euclide and his sister to choose another way.”
The company would like to eventually have
a system set in place that allows customers to
secure large pieces of equipment to rent via
their website, like a car rental company. Right
now, “rental is not like the theater where you
can reserve and have a seat at a certain time.” It
also would like to implement barcode scanning
technology, which would allow customers to see
where pieces are and if they are in proximity to
said equipment.
“Our network is important, because our
customers can say that wherever they go, they
can find a Simplex close by,” Véronneau says.
“You have to have a great relationship with your
customers. Stay honest with them. The spirit of
how we do business is to serve the customer,
that’s how we’ve been in business for over a
century, because we have good relationships
and it’s a family business and also a business
with values.”
And those values stack up both externally and
internally, Véronneau says - some of Simplex’s
mechanics have been with them for 30 years.
“These values have been put forth since
the beginning and it’s very important; more
important than making money,” Véronneau says.
But back to money – toward the end of our
conversation, I ask Véronneau if he has any
plans to sell the company. “Each month I refuse
a selling offer,” Véronneau says. “Ten years ago
it was each week I refused one. But no, I have
no plans to sell.
“A business is like a pot, each generation, it
grows and grows.”
■
A truck-full of scissor lifts waits to be unloaded
at Simplex Equipment Rental in Montreal.
Excavators wait to
be shipped out from
Simplex Equipment
Rental’s maintenance
facility.
A small snapshot of
some of the machines
that have been recently
visited or are going
to visit Simplex’s
maintenance garage.
André Véronneau, president and CEO of Simplex
Equipment Rental.
