Innovation is not always about creating a better mousetrap - it can also mean
rethinking the way you catch the mouse altogether. For Noel Parkinson, 49,
it meant imagining a new way to sell the car on your drive. So instead of
composing a classified ad, fielding calls and haggling with tyre-kickers by
the kerbside, Parkinson’s customers on wewillbuyyourcar.com
can use his service to get a rapid online offer for their cars.
Users enter their car’s details onto the website and receive an immediate firm
offer for their vehicles (with the proviso that the information is correct).
A local collection company calls to assess that the condition of the vehicle
is as stated, and take it away, at which point payment is made by electronic
transfer. Parkinson will then offload the car through the trade.
Although he pays below accepted market value, he says: “We take the pain out
of selling your car. You can get an instant offer 24/7 - and it’s free. It
also gives you cash to go to dealers and bargain hard.”
Parkinson, a former professional footballer, began planning the business in
2004, after being sacked as managing director of online sales for
car-leasing website Jamjar. com, along with his senior management team. He
launched Wewillbuyyourcar. com in 2006 with his former fellow directors at
Jamjar, putting in £80,000 of his own money. With bank funding they raised a
total of £200,000 to design the company’s website and create the software to
calculate car values.
The Hull company maintains a core staff of only nine; all other aspects of the
365 days-a-year business are outsourced, giving the firm the ability to
react swiftly to any changes in its market. As well as the service it offers
private individuals, the firm also has a business-to-business angle, says
Parkinson. “We can show a dealer in Glasgow a car from Plymouth they would
not otherwise have seen. It’s a new take on a mature market. At the moment
we have about 0.03% of the market, so there’s a lot more room for expansion.”
Wewillbuyyourcar.com grew 25% last year and has a turnover of £20m. Despite a
severe downturn among traditional car dealers in recent weeks and collapsing
car values, business is continuing to grow strongly, claims Parkinson, who
sees other opportunities to innovate. He is examining options to expand into
continental Europe and exploring ways the software that drives the service
might be adapted to other markets.
While many people think of innovation as something related to new products,
some of the most creative developments inside a business stem from thinking
more imaginatively in the way Parkinson demonstrates, says Douglas Ferguson,
leader of Hay Group’s innovation practice.
The way Parkinson’s firm cuts through the complexity and tedium of selling a
car, using technology to simplify the process, is a common marker of
innovative business models, he explains. “Southwest Airlines in the US is a
well-known example of a business that took a radical approach to innovating
in its business model in the 1990s.
“It made the decision to fly from secondary cities to secondary cities, it
flew only 737s and didn’t assign seats. It helped the business to grow
steadily at a time when the airline industry was in a downturn. It’s a model
that has been widely copied since then.”
