For any business to reach their 20th anniversary is a remarkable achievement given the volatile economic climate that we live in.
For this month’s edition of Irish Tractor & Agri we profile Cork based McCarthy Plant & Agri Sales Ltd and speak to company managing director Tim McCarthy about the success of the business over the past two decades.
McCarthy Plant & Agri Sales Ltd specialises in the sale and service of plant and agricultural equipment to a large customer base. From humble beginnings, the company headquartered in Ballyrichard, Carrigtwohill has grown to meet the demands of its ever growing customer base.
Having become main dealers for renowned farm machinery supplier Claas in 2002, McCarthy’s have gone on to earn a reputation for being the best in the business. These days, Claas are joined by Red Rock, Venieri, Triolet, Howard, Teagle, Cross eng, Sulky and Nugent to name just a few of the top quality brands available.
The McCarthy family come from a farming background and when John McCarthy first started selling machinery in 1994, he was based on the farmyard at home. John’s brother Tim had stayed in the family business at first as they carried out agricultural contracting around the Cork area.
However, Tim decided in 2005 to make a change and having spoken to a friend of his, he decided to take up selling jeeps a year later. “My father was a very progressive farmer and we would have been one of the first contractors to have a self- propelled harvester. So from as early as then myself and John had a good understanding of farm machinery,” said Tim.
“John worked hard to build up the business and he was doing very well as he had become a main dealer for Claas as well as many other top brands. Unfortunately in 2006, he was involved in a car accident and he was no longer able to give the time to the business that was needed and two years later his wife decided to sell the business.
“At this stage I was selling jeeps having sold off all the machinery and I decided to help out running the business. In March, 2008 my wife Fidelma and I took over the business.”
McCarthy Plant & Agri Sales Ltd has continued to grow and every machine that is sold is backed up by their large spare parts division.
Sales are obviously the main core of the business, but our service department is growing all the time and they have a 24hr call out service to cater for their customers’ needs.
“Coming from a farming background, I’ve a good understanding of what our customers need and demand. During the summer months when they are at their peak, breakdowns do occur, but it is how quickly that they get back up and running that is the important thing. That is why we have service vans here that will attend a breakdown anywhere in the country if needed. We have a huge range of parts available to us and we can get them out to the customer as quickly as possible. Our experienced staff know what the customer wants, so as soon as they ring us, we can put them in the right direction.”
Last year was a huge year for the business as an unforeseen expansion came about as Tim revealed to us.
“I got a call from a farm machinery dealer based in Clonakilty which would be in West Cork and he told me that he needed to make changes as he didn’t have any of the bigger brands which were needed to survive in the business today. He asked would I be interested in talking to see if we could come to some arrangement. The call kind of caught me on the hop, so that weekend I drove over to Clonakilty and drove a few miles in each direction from the purpose built premises there and noticed that there was very good agricultural land in that part of the county.
“So I met the owner and we discussed a few things and within two weeks the deal was more or less done. We’re very happy with the decision we made and in the first couple of weeks of owning it, we sold a harvester, which was a good start. We have more then doubled our tractor sales this year and would put this down to this second branch.
“I realised that to expand the business customers weren’t going to come that far to us, so instead we went to them and we provide the same services that we do in Carrigtwohill”
There are 20 people employed between the two premises these days and all are highly trained to deal with any customer queries, while the service department continues to deliver a high standard and efficient service.
“Fidelma looks after the administration side of the business while my son Conor is also involved now. Some of the employees are here for years and they have a great deal of experience built up, which puts the customer at ease knowing who they are dealing with, and knows what they are talking about.”
Tim is pleased with the direction that the business has taken in the last few years and he acknowledges the fact that it is essential to try to improve on the service in order to keep the customers happy.
McCarthy plant and agri are now importing the VENIERI brand direct and are showing the latest models at this year’s ploughing championship. We have sold some of these loaders in the last year to customers in Cork, Tipperary, Offaly and Kerry and all of these customers are happy with the performance and reliability that Venieri is known for.
Please call and discuss any requirements that you may have, we look forward to meeting you.
McCarthy Plant & Agri Sales Ltd,
Ballyrichard,
Carrigatwohill,
Cork.
Tel: (021) 4631229
Fax: (021) 4631227
Taken from Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 2 No 5, October 2014
