In the first part of our wide-ranging interview with UFI Filters Sales Director UK and Ireland, Karl Ridings, he responds to our questions, which focus on strategy, how the company is handling volatile market conditions and MOT proposals:
Q. Karl, thank you for taking the time to talk to us – what is UFI Filters’ main focus right now?
Karl Ridings (KR): “We have several focuses right now: one being the recently introduced range of heavy duty filters to the UK and Ireland. For passenger cars and light vehicles, we have enjoyed tremendous growth in the last five years, even during the pandemic. For UFI, it’s very important to maintain the service level our customers expect, in terms of availability, sales support and customer service, but also the continued growth with existing and new customers.
“Being a company with a strong original equipment (OE) pedigree does not simply mean that we are OE suppliers, it also demonstrates that we have specific technologies and expertise, such as our in-house production of the filter materials that make up the media of our filters.
“To this end, the company has developed six different recipes – ‘FormulaUFI’ – which cover the entire range of filtration: fuel, air, oil, passenger compartment and hydraulics. These can be customised according to the needs of individual applications, to meet the requirements of the most important manufacturers. Indeed, innovation is in the DNA of our company. This has allowed us to develop new technologies, underlined by, to date, more than 280 patents.
“UFI Filters Group continues to build its OE range, thus laying the foundations for the further implementation and enrichment of our aftermarket offer. Our distributors can always count on the OE pedigree of our products. The aftermarket filter programme incorporates our OE filters and our philosophy of already meeting tomorrow’s demands, today.”
Q. The COVID-19 pandemic and, most recently, crisis in Ukraine has caused disruption in many ways – how is UFI Filters faring, particularly with the UK’s aftermarket division expanding only in 2019?
KR: “The team also expanded in 2021 and 2022, adding additions to customer services, warehouse operatives and salespeople. The pandemic gave us many challenges, but we chose to stay fully operational with all of our staff during this time, ensuring our customers knew that they had their usual full sales and customer services support.
“We offered some additional customer support in the hardest times of 2020, with additional payment and discount terms and introduced a brand-new email marketing campaign, to keep our customers up-to-date on new products and company news.
“Brexit also provided some additional challenges, such as port delays, but prior to that, we took the opportunity to take on additional stock coverage. In my opinion, having been operating now in the UK for only five years (we launched in March 2017), we are ‘faring’ extremely well and looking forward to the exciting future that UFI Filters has in the UK and Ireland.”
Q. Under UK government proposals, the MOT could be extended to two years – what does UFI Filters think about that?
KR: “Firstly, what is important is that the market understands the need to follow the recommended service period of the vehicles. Relating to the MOT being extended, my opinion is that the aftermarket fought for this to be scrapped for many years and thankfully was successful. To keep our roads safe and to identify potentially dangerous cars on our roads, I believe it should not be extended to two years. It is important to make sure that vehicles are functioning correctly in order to prevent the wear and guarantee a longer lifetime of the vehicle.”
Part two of Karl’s interview, which includes how UFI Filters is beating the counterfeiters, will run in September’s edition.
