Skip to main content

Hill & Smith gears up for buyers’ market

More than five years of recession has left the European roads sector a “buyers’ market” and only those companies able to compete on price will be able to address it, Miles Boyd, commercial manager of Hill & Smith said at Intertraffic. “I think the challenge going forward is to address this buyers’ market,” said Boyd. “The state of the economy tightened the belt of most local authorities. At Hill & Smith we have been value-engineering our products to ensure that we can offer cost-effective products that we
March 25, 2014 Read time: 2 mins
The bigger picture: Hill & Smith’s commercial manager Miles Boyd
More than five years of recession has left the European roads sector a “buyers’ market” and only those companies able to compete on price will be able to address it, Miles Boyd, commercial manager of 60 Hill & Smith said at Intertraffic.

“I think the challenge going forward is to address this buyers’ market,” said Boyd. “The state of the economy tightened the belt of most local authorities. At Hill & Smith we have been value-engineering our products to ensure that we can offer cost-effective products that we bring to the market.

“The result is very high-value products with a very competitive cost base.”

The company, which made a number of acquisitions including ATA of Sweden, now offers a complete portfolio of technically-advanced vehicle restraint systems.

To complement the firm’s higher profile, it has doubled the size of its stand at this edition of Intertraffic. The result is a striking double-decker stand.

“This time we decided to look at our marketing plan slightly differently,” said Boyd. “We felt that the Hill & Smith roads collection of business units and we need to shout a little bit more about what we are doing in the industry.

“The European market is where we see growth in the business and Intertraffic is the premier expo for Europe and so we needed a larger-than-life presence.”

Boyd added that Intertraffic was also an occasion for executives from the different Hill & Smith divisions to get together.
www.hill-smith.co.uk

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • When will Google wake up to MaaS gold mine?
    December 3, 2018
    Mobility services are a potential gold mine for data-hungry tech companies. That being the case, Andrew Bunn asks: what exactly happens when giants such as Google and Amazon decide to get their teeth into MaaS? There are many different perspectives on Mobility as a Service (MaaS), with many different views on what the latest and future applications of technology are going to bring to transportation infrastructure. However, there is one question that does not seem to come up at all. Up to now, MaaS-relate
  • Next generation of SafeEnd energy absorbing barrier terminals
    March 3, 2014
    Norwegian company SafeRoad will use Intertraffic Amsterdam 2014 to present SafeEnd, a new generation of energy absorbing end terminals, developed and tested according to the ENV 1317-4 and prEN 1317-7 standards. Features of the product are fast and easy installation, narrow width to allow usage at places with limited space, and low weight. The terminal can be used in combination with any existing safety barrier system, on central reservations as well as along the roadside.
  • Moxa plays it big
    May 20, 2012
    The desire to retrieve images from more and more locations means that IP video networks’ geographic coverage is growing all the time. In parallel, those same networks are becoming more densely populated with cameras. Although the individual cameras may only take 3Mb/s of bandwidth at average resolutions and frame rates, their cumulative effect is pushing jurisdictions towards the use of Gigabit Ethernet.
  • Czech company cross celebrates Olympics success
    March 26, 2014
    Fresh from success in helping the Russian city of Sochi prepare for the Winter Olympics, Czech traffic technology company Cross is showing two new products at Intertraffic. Its RS 4S traffic controller is a more compact, cost-efficient version of its existing model. Head of sales Tomáš Pospíšek described it as a ‘4.5 generation’ model, which could handle all but the most complex intersections. “It’s a little more simplified than the existing model, but more than enough for most intersections you would find