SEAT Mii - Coming to Marshall SEAT in May 2012

The New SEAT Mii at Marshall SEAT

Welcome to the world of the New SEAT Mii. 

The new SEAT Mii will be arriving at Cambridge SEAT and 

Leicester SEAT in May 2012 and will be available to test drive.

A car that opens up a world of opportunities. A world where everything will seem more enjoyable: the shops, family days out, travelling to work.

Having a vehicle with the latest technology, low consumption and the space to allow you to carry around all you want, will make your life more complete.

The New SEAT Mii features the latest advances in multimedia, Portable Seat System, which integrates browser and Bluetooth in one device and allows you to display information on the on-board computer and radio CD-MP3 on your screen.

For more information on the SEAT Mii and other vehicles in the SEAT range click here to visit Marshall SEAT

Marshall Motor Group Careers now appearing on Twitter as @motorcareers
Marshall Motor Group have set up a twitter account that automatically tweets when a new job is advertised on their recruitment system. This enables potential candidates to follow the account @motorcareers and see our vacancies as soon as they go live.

Marshall Motor Holdings HR Director Carole Burman commented "Using social media to advertise our new vacancies is a natural progression for Marshall as we use social media successfully in all areas of our business. Achieving maximum exposure to attract high quality candidates is vital as it is our teams that give our business its strength to compete in this exciting market."

To visit our @motorcareers twitter page click here

Marshall Aquires FCross & Son

Marshall, the privately-funded, family-owned dealer group has today completed its acquisition of the F. Cross & Sons businesses in Grimsby and Scunthorpe, comprising:

• Grimsby Volkswagen (passenger cars)
• Scunthorpe Volkswagen (passenger cars & commercial vehicles)
• Scunthorpe Kia.

It also includes Authorised Repairer businesses for Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles in Grimsby and Renault in Scunthorpe. Around 120 former F. Cross & Son colleagues have transferred to Marshall under the terms of the agreement.

Commenting on the deal, Marshall Chief Executive, Daksh Gupta said: “We are delighted to be acquiring these businesses and to welcome our new colleagues to Marshall. F. Cross & Son is another family owned business, like Marshall, and we share many of the same values.”

F. Cross & Son was founded in 1958 by Fred Cross and has remained a family business from that time. Marshall was founded in 1909 by David Marshall and its current chairman, Sir Michael Marshall is the third generation of the family to chair the family business.

Daksh Gupta added: “We are excited to be partnering Volkswagen, both with passenger cars and with light commercial vehicles, at these new businesses. Since we started out with our new strategy in 2008, we have been very keen to partner with both brands and build on our existing relationship with the wider Volkswagen Group. Volkswagen is one of the most highly respected automotive brands globally and we are looking forward to building a strong relationship them in the coming months and years. This acquisition is consistent with our strategy to grow nationally to minimise our over exposure to East Anglia and grow with scalable businesses as well as to build depth to our relationships with key brand partners like the Volkswagen Group.”

Spencer Clayton-Jones, National Franchise Manager for Volkswagen UK commented: “F. Cross & Son has been a partner of Volkswagen in the UK for over two decades and been part of the significant growth the Brand has enjoyed during that time. We are very grateful to the Cross family for representing the Volkswagen brand for so long and for developing a strong local reputation for both businesses, and wish them every success for the future. Going forward, we are pleased to welcome the Marshall Group to Volkswagen at such an exciting time for the Brand with the launch of both up! and Beetle in 2012. We look forward to working with the Marshall Group and enjoying the next phase of development and growth.”

Closing, Daksh Gupta said: “We are also glad to be deepening further our relationship with Kia and extending our representation to three sites with this growing brand. The Scunthorpe Kia business is one of the oldest in the country with that brand.”

The First Annual MAVTA Awards - Marshall Achievement, Values and Teamwork Awards

 A gala dinner was held last Friday in Kings College, Cambridge for the first MAVTA awards ceremony.  It was a highly enjoyable evening hosted by Austin Healey, the ex-England and British Lions rugby player.

There was an extremely high standard of nominations and we were thrilled to see Tim Phillips, General Manager from our York and Hull Honda businesses win the Group award for Leadership. He received as his prize a stay at the Ritz Hotel complete with theatre package.  We hope that he and Vicki enjoy this richly deserved reward.

Though they didn’t win the team category, I was also delighted that Marshall Leasing team who were specially recognised for extolling our values so brilliantly when coming to the assistance of a colleague facing some very difficult times following a family bereavement.

I would also like to pay tribute to all of the other shortlisted nominees who had ensured that we had a very strong representation in all categories on the evening.   

Customer Service

Dale Porter, Service Driver/Cleaner, Blackpool Mercedes Benz and Smart

David Howe, Service Advisor, Peterborough Jaguar

Debbie Cousins, Accounts Office Manager, Head Office

Gareth McGill, Corporate Sales Executive, Knebworth Vauxhall

Jackie Roslyn, Service Advisor, Harrogate Honda

Jayne Gunn, Sales Administrator, Mountsorrel Honda

Kevin Henry, Reward & HR Administration Clerk, Head Office

Innovation

Marcus Knapp, Web Developer, Head Office

Richard Fuller, Web Development Manager, Head Office

Leadership

Tim Loane, Sales Manager, Cambridge Used Sales

Tim Phillips, General Manager, York & Hull Honda

Trevor Collins, Service Manager, Nottingham Volvo

Service to the Community

Diana Petchell, Regional Administration Manager, Cambridge

Douglas Cobb, Service Driver, Ipswich Kia, Chevrolet, & Vauxhall

Team

Marshall Leasing

Melton Land Rover

Peterborough Communications

I hope those that attended enjoyed the evening and will be keen to ensure that they are at next year’s event which is already in the planning!

On the night, we saw a high standard of nominations from our sister companies in the Group and I know that given the number of talented and enthusiastic people that we employ in Marshall we will be able to have as many, if not more great nominations when the MAVTA nomination process starts again in the summer.

Marshall Motor Group join CarsandGarages, a website that helps customers manage their cars needs.

Please read the following statement from their website

CarsandGarages is a new web-service that provides free impartial motoring advice. It’s simple to use and completely independent.

We know it only takes a handful of dishonest garages to spoil the reputation of the great many reputable operators, but amongst car owners generally there is a lack of confidence and trust. On the whole car owner’s lack technical knowledge and the distressed nature of most car repairs only serve to increase this mistrust. 

To underline the scale of the problem, six out of ten people we spoke to said they had been overcharged or received bad service from a garage, repairer or bodyshop.†   

CarsandGarages aims to help.

Our principles

Independence - we don’t own or recommend any of the garages ourselves, we don’t make them adhere to an artificial set of standards and we certainly don’t charge them for listing on the site.

Honesty - CarsandGarages makes every effort to ensure that all listings and content is genuine, taking a zero tolerance approach to bogus content. We understand there will always be a minority of people who try to submit manufactured content take steps to   

Simplicity - we appreciate not every knows or wants to know exactly how their car works, but we also understand you rely on your car. We try to keep everything on the site as easy as possible to use, keeping the jargon to a minimum - or at least explaining what it means the average motorist to understand.

Click here to visit the website

MARSHALL MOTOR GROUP SELECTS CASTROL LUBRICANTS

• One of the UK’s largest dealer groups signs three-year deal with Castrol Professional
• Agreement, effective from 1 September, sees Castrol Professional supplying lubricants to 26 different brands across 62 dealerships

Marshall Motor Group has selected Castrol Professional to supply its lubricants in a new three-year deal.

The group – one of the largest and fastest growing dealer groups in the UK, having doubled in size over the last two years - switched to Castrol Professional after 20 years with a previous supplier.  The contract is effective from 1^st September and sees Castrol Professional supplying lubricants to 26 different brands across Marshall’s 62 dealerships.

Castrol is the most recognised lubricants brand in the UK, and the brand to which motorists are most loyal.  Castrol Professional supports its lubricants products – which are uniquely co-engineered with many of the world’s leading car manufacturers and which are exclusive to the franchised dealer sector – with a range of advanced internally-developed aftersales business development, consultancy and training solutions.  These programmes include the award-winning Red Carpet training programme for service advisers and the real-time Electronic Visual Healthcheck (EVHC) system.

“This new deal allows us to maintain our oil profit margin at a dealership level while also providing the group with access to Castrol’s excellent support programmes in aftersales, which we have always regarded as a crucial to our business success,” commented Daksh Gupta, CEO, Marshall Motor Group.

“Furthermore, Castrol is also the only supplier whose lubricants meet or exceed the requirements of every brand within our Group portfolio and it boasts an unrivalled level of brand awareness and loyalty amongst motorists.”

Nigel Head, Castrol Franchised Workshop and OEM Marketing Manager – UK & Ireland, said: “It’s testament to the strength of our overall offer and market position that another top-flight dealer group has chosen to transfer its lubricants supply contract to Castrol Professional.  We’re delighted to be working with Marshall Motor Group and look forward to supporting the further development of its aftersales profitability.  As the UK emerges from recession, the franchised sector is increasingly evaluating the profit-earning potential that suppliers bring to aftersales operations, and we have a robust and proven track record of delivering in that arena.”

About Castrol

Castrol (www.castrol.com) is part of BP, one of the world’s largest energy companies.  Through strategic partnerships with many of the world’s leading car manufacturers, Castrol is able to maintain its position as the market and technical leader for automotive lubricants for trade and retail customers.

Castrol has a specially tailored offer for franchised workshops combining three professional lubricant brands with a range of business support programmes for improved business performance, training, re-engineering processes, workshop equipment planning, delivering tele-business solutions, and creating and managing effective sales and marketing programmes.

Named Castrol Professional, the offer has been specifically designed to help maximise workshop profit margins across three key sources of value: lubricant sales, increased parts and labour sales, and customer satisfaction.  It is supported through the largest field management team in the sector.

The Castrol Professional product range comprises a line-up of lubricants exclusive to franchised workshops:

-  Castrol SLX Professional: a range of premium fully synthetic lubricants, each uniquely co-engineered through exclusive strategic partnerships with BMW, Volkswagen Automotive Group and Volvo, to meet the specific requirements of their modern engines.

-  Castrol Magnatec Professional: the premium semi-synthetic lubricant which features unique ‘intelligent molecules’ that provide extra protection where it’s needed most in the engine.

-  Castrol GTX Professional: superior engine protection

Castrol Professional products are further endorsed by recommendations from Land Rover, Jaguar, Ford and Honda.

The Marshall Challenge

The Marshall Motor Group is always looking at ways to reduce your costs and make your motoring more affordable. We are so confident that we can save you money and put you in a newer car that we are offering you a challenge and if we can't save you money, we’ll give you the choice of £300 misfuelling insurance or £350 Lock & Key Insurance.

We guarantee that you could be driving away in a newer car and we'll reduce your monthly outgoings through lower fuel costs, paying less road tax, no deposit to pay and you may even get cash back! Take the Marshall Money Saving challenge by clicking the button below.

Remember you can’t lose out because if we can’t save you money, you get the choice of £300 misfuelling insurance or £350 Lock & Key Insurance.

With over 2000 used cars to choose from, we guarantee you will be spoilt for choice. The Marshall Money Saving Challenge click below to take it today.