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Driving growth in Hawkes Bay and Manawatu
Bridget McClure is enjoying talking to her customers more than ever.
She loved her role as Royal Wolf’s Napier Branch Manager, but as the new Business Development Manager for Hawkes Bay and Manawatu, her week is now spent on the road visiting clients helping them solve business challenges.
“It’s what I love most about this job,” she says. “Being able to get out and about, and coming up with container solutions that meet my customer’s business needs is my passion and what I’m good at.”
She calls them “lightbulb moments” when she’s working with a client and they strike upon an entirely new solution.
“We work with many businesses that need to solve a wide range of problems. What makes me smile is making customers happy with a great container idea that helps them improve and grow their business.”
National coverage, regional reach
The BDM role, covering the two neighbouring provinces, was created to drive regional growth and increase the reach and impact of national account clients in Hawkes Bay and Manawatu.
In the last two years, Royal Wolf has had significant success securing key national supply contracts.
“The national supply agreements have a positive effect right across the country as it flows into sales objectives for the regional teams,” says Bridget.
She says the key to growth and sales success is understanding the needs of customers, ensuring they have access to suitable products, and developing new products.
“It’s about more than what they need now, it’s about building strong relationships to ensure we can meet their future needs, and to support them by continuing to improve and refine our products to make safety, productivity and sustainability key outcomes.”
Challenge, recovery, and progress
Bridget started at Royal Wolf as Senior Sales Executive in 2018 before stepping up to Branch Manager in 2020 which coincided with the pandemic.
She admits it was a challenging time. However, with Royal Wolf being an essential service, containers played a major part in helping to keep local businesses and community groups in Hawkes Bay operating.
In early 2023, Cyclone Gabrielle presented another challenge. Bridget and the Royal Wolf team supported organisations and businesses such as Omahu Marae, Napier Riding for the Disabled, and Napier Golf Club with container product to help them get back up and running.
Ongoing construction and infrastructure projects in both Hawkes Bay and Manawatu, including the Hawkes Bay Recovery Agency’s work following Cyclone Gabrielle, continue to drive demand for shipping container products.
This includes everything from dry storage and refrigerated containers, through to dangerous goods containers, portable buildings for the construction sector, and self-storage.
Other local projects include partnering with Hastings District Council on a container café project at a local skate park and developing a modified container building for New Zealand’s oldest ice creamery, Rush Munro’s.
“The Rush Munro’s project set a benchmark,” says Bridget of the shop in central Hastings made from two 20-foot containers. “Not only are they an iconic local business, but it’s a highly practical solution that looks great and enabled the business to transplant itself into a high foot traffic location in the centre of town.”
