NEWS

Delegating responsibility for selling used machines to third party auction houses carries the risk of sub-optimal outcomes. Now, a new breed of online platforms aims to mitigate that risk, empowering companies to remarket equipment themselves using their own auction technology.Imagine you’re a contractor or rental house in the process of recycling your fleet. Or a major OEM with large numbers of used trade-in machines to remarket. (Often made up of competing brands.) You send your well-maintained assets to an unreserved auction – and not only is there a risk of them being snapped up for a fraction of their true worth, but many of them could end up on the other side of town, filling the portfolio gaps of your fiercest rival.Or perhaps you get lucky, offloading an asset at a time of peak demand, with frenzied bidding driving the price sky-high. However, with bidding data locked in the auctioneer’s database, there is no way of tapping into that lucrative market of disappointed bidders for further, future sales.These are just two of the problems peculiar to third party auctions that are persuading equipment sellers to bring remarketing responsibility in-house, thanks to a new breed of online SaaS platforms. UK headquartered Krank is the leading example, used by major equipment OEMs and fleet owners. Krank offers three avenues of disposal – ‘classifieds’, eBay-style 30-day timed auctions, and live auction events. In each, both buyers and sellers enjoy a more rewarding transaction, with far fewer (or even zero) supplementary costs. Convenience – but at a cost“If you're prepared to risk selling at an unreserved auction, it can be a good route for disposal, especially when demand outweighs supply,” says Krank founder Mark Turner. “While there is little doubt that they are quick and efficient ways to raise cash, often they’re a last resort. But if the asset you’re selling isn’t in demand, vendors may be disappointed. It can also grate to know that third party auction companies pride themselves on making money when the market is good – but even more when the market is bad.”Compliance is also a consideration. Competitors acquiring your fleet cheaply, or discovering you’ve inadvertently sold assets to an embargoed country, are both outcomes to be avoided. These are situations that systems such as Krank can prevent by requiring potential bidders to be pre-approved by the vendor, if desired. (Or simply geo-fencing markets and territories to restrict bidders to selected regions.) This then paves the way for inspection or discussing the provenance of a machine.Users of these new platforms can – should, in fact – leverage their customer database to drum up greater interest in their equipment sales. This will draw a larger, prequalified, and interested audience, and avoid the risk of equipment being sold for less than its worth for lack of competition. That said, the unreserved option is available through these platforms – for those items where vendors just want it out of the yard.Priming the sales team for follow-up salesWhile the winners’ data are important, the information about who didn’t win is just as important. “Companies who throw everything into third party auctions are basically rendering their sales teams redundant. If they ran the auctions themselves, the reverse would be true – they would be priming their own sales funnel with red hot leads,” claims Turner.“Let’s say your excavator sells for $50,000. As soon as your auction closes, we send you (and anyone in your team), a notification with a table of all that bidder data, the profiles of the bidders (because they’ve all had to connect and network with you prior to bidding), and the highest prices points their bids reached. That’s not a lead, that’s potentially further pre-baked sales. One of your sales guys can call the second-highest bidder and say: ‘You got close – and we have another asset in the yard you can have – similar condition for a similar price’. Or maybe one bidder dropped out at just $25,000 – that’s potentially a pre-baked rental sale if you’re an equipment rental company: ‘How about you take one for $2,500 a month instead?’”Cutting carbon – and costsThe desire to reduce the time, expense and carbon footprint incurred by the – often unnecessary – transportation of equipment to an onsite auction is another major attraction of systems such as Krank. Transportation to an auction site can reduce profits by up to 30%, after factoring in other fees. “The first crane I ever brokered was in Qatar, to a buyer from Dubai who’s project fab yard was just 1km away from where the seller’s crane was located!” Turner reveals. “Imagine the cost and carbon footprint if we’d delivered that crane to the auction in Jebel Ali, nearly 700km away, and then brought it all the way back again. An extreme example, perhaps, but valid all the same.”Monetizing ‘stuff’These new platforms’ easy functionality also makes it useful for disposing of items rarely seen at traditional auctions. That old bucket that’s been sitting in a corner of the yard for decades, for example, could be sold using Krank’s unreserved price option. “Someone may buy an old bucket from you today, and then come back for the rest of the excavator tomorrow,” Turner half-jokes.Nevertheless, even those small-time one-off buyers and sellers are driving the transformation of, or even disrupting, the used equipment industry, and its established methods of doing business. The ability to scale up is intrinsic to the organic growth of platforms like Krank, and that is driven through the connections and networking of its users, as well as the leveraging of the latest technologies.

Tasked with managing the operational growth of the rapidly expanding SaaS heavy equipment trading platform, Metcalfe will build on his extensive business, technology and start up experience to execute on Krank’s vision of transforming the inner workings for one of the largest global industries. As COO at Krank, Metcalfe will lead and scale business operations and go-to-market activities to deliver on Krank’s exciting business roadmap and expansion plans.Metcalfe began his career in institutional sales at Legal & General Investment Management. This was followed by strategy, business growth and operations roles at various B2B technology and startup companies, most recently rising to a COO role at the fintech start-up Cobalt. At his time at Cobalt, Metcalfe was pivotal in raising major institutional investment and signing global clients, including Citi and Deutsche Bank. He joins Krank following the company’s transformative deals with US rental giant Maxim Crane and technology company Liebherr, where the unique Krank platform will underpin a large proportion of the companies’ used equipment disposals. Giles Metcalfe, Chief Operating Officer at Krank.“I’m thrilled to be joining Krank at such a formative and fast-moving time for Krank’s unique business model,” Metcalfe said of his appointment. CEO and founder of Krank Mark Turner meanwhile, says: “Giles is a very welcome addition to the team – with his experience in growing technology businesses, I am confident he will make a very strong contribution in driving Krank’s rapid expansion.”From upstart to start upMetcalfe’s career to date has been marked by his entrepreneurial spirit and lateral thinking - having ran and sold a business by the age of 18 and receiving national newspaper coverage during the financial crisis for his innovative approach to securing his first job in London’s financial district. (Metcalfe stood with a banner and handed out CVs in Broadgate Circle, London – resulting in over 25 interviews in the following weeks.) 

The specific product segments such as mining, construction and material handling of technology company Liebherr is set to sell used machines, attachments and spare parts to customers via an all-new digital marketplace. The global trading platform is being developed in partnership with software-as-a-service provider Krank. Replacing an existing digital marketplace, the new solution will centralise the sale of Liebherr used mining, construction and material handling technology worldwide. Due to launch during the first quarter of 2023, the platform underlying the marketplace is being developed in close collaboration with UK software-as-a-service (SaaS) experts Krank.The new marketplace will be a Krank-developed platform that allows Liebherr sales partners worldwide to quickly and conveniently manage their used equipment sales processes – and market them online. It will cover the sale of used mining, earthmoving and material handling machines, mobile and crawler cranes, tower cranes, maritime cranes, concrete technology and corresponding used attachments and spare parts.Krank the ‘stand-out’ construction marketplace developerCommenting on the choice of Krank as its development partner, Daniel Hecker, Business Development Sales at Liebherr-EMtec GmbH said: “We were looking for an expert in creating marketplaces for used construction equipment – and Krank is the stand-out partner. With the relaunch of the marketplace, we will have a central platform for our global used equipment business. Customers will be able to independently search our virtual marketplace for the used equipment they need, while our sales partners will register and manage their used equipment via the platform and its associated apps.”“The marketplace will bring together on a single platform the entire supply and demand sides of our used equipment business,” Hecker continues. “It will have the ability to combine Liebherr’s strengths of personal advice and customer relationships with the much greater visibility a global digital marketplace offers.”Krank helps users keep control of process and dataKrank is a SaaS platform that provides a new way to remarket used equipment. Subscriber-branded (Liebherr in this case), it helps customers sell faster and improve revenues. UK headquartered, Krank enables customers to manage the sale process and keep direct control of their business network and data.Figure 1 Krank Founder Mark Turner (left) with Liebherr's Alexander Sattler, Head of Business Development Sales & ServiceKrank Enterprise leverages the network effect, so customers reach more high-intent buyers, convert faster, reduce conversion costs and improve sales revenues. With full end-to-end control over sales data – plus Krank’s built-in analysis, customer analytics and forecasting – customers can generate actionable insights and influence buyer behaviour.About the Liebherr GroupThe Liebherr Group is a family-run technology company with a highly diversified product portfolio. The company is one of the largest construction equipment manufacturers in the world. It also provides high-quality and user-oriented products and services in a wide range of other areas. The Liebherr Group includes over 140 companies across all continents. In 2020, it employed around 48,000 staff and achieved combined revenues of over 10.3 billion euros. Liebherr was founded in Kirchdorf an der Iller in Southern Germany in 1949. Since then, the employees have been pursuing the goal of achieving continuous technological innovation, and bringing industry-leading solutions to its customers.

The consultancy-for-equity investment expands Krank’s online B2B equipment trading and networking software platform outside its construction base to the wider automobility industry.Enterprise software-as-a-service solution Krank has announced that automobility management consultancy Berylls has taken a stake in the online B2B trading and networking software provider to accelerate its development.Berylls now owns a stake in the U.K.-based technology platform in exchange for significant support in building Krank's business and organization.The ultimate insidersGerman headquartered Berylls is the go-to consultancy in the auto and mobility industry, helping major car and truck brands, as well as distributors, lease companies and automobility investors with strategy, performance, and change. Berylls’ UK managing director Arthur Kipferler helped broker the investment and is now an executive director of Krank. Speaking about the strategic partnership with Krank he said:“The core of the Krank Enterprise concept is to offer customers their own branded marketplace, with Krank’s technology supporting transactions in the background. Krank’s unique technology and business model is truly disruptive in the vehicle trading industry. Not only can it enable remarketing transactions at much lower cost than incumbents, but it also gives sellers more data, and buyers more confidence.“Krank has the ideal combination of clever technology meeting a real market need,” Kipferler continued. “Add in Berylls’ considerable resources and business-building skills and you get a powerful combination. We will also provide support to expand Krank’s organizational structure and commercial offering."The potential to change an industryCommenting on the strategic tie up Mark Turner, founder and CEO of Krank said: “Berylls is the ideal partner for Krank. Not only does it have the resources to quickly expand our team, it is also helping fine tune the commercial aspects of our offering. Having Berylls as a partner gives Krank an exciting long-term horizon, one where together we build a business that will have a positive impact on the industry.”Arthur Kipferler, Berylls’ UK managing director,and Executive Director, Krank