“I talk forklift”
Take a moment to look around you.
The desk in front of you. The laptop sitting on it. The coffee cup in your hand. At some point, almost everything you touch has been picked up by a forklift.
That is how Dale Rosewall, our Head of motive.li South Africa, sees the materials-handling industry.
“Everything you touch and feel was picked up by a forklift somewhere along the line. Forklifts are always going to be there. Whether they become autonomous or not, you’re still going to need them.”
Dale entered the forklift industry in 2008 and seventeen years later, forklifts have become a language he speaks fluently. He jokes, “my biggest superpower, if you want to call it that, is that I talk forklift.”
For him, that means understanding more than a machine model or a battery specification. It means understanding how the forklift is being used, how hard it is working and what the wider operation requires from it.
Every forklift application is different. A forklift operating in cold storage faces different demands from one working in an aluminium factory, or a warehouse or small distribution depot. Even two apparently similar businesses may organise their logistics in completely different ways.
That is why Dale believes the right conversation begins with listening.
“If I’ve got 30 minutes with a customer, I’d rather spend those 30 minutes listening to their frustrations than trying to sell them a product, because I need to help them find the right solution.”
What is preventing the operation from running properly? Is there enough space? Has utilisation increased? Is the equipment correctly specified for the job it is now doing and not just the job it was originally expected to do?
The battery is the heart of an electric forklift. If it stops, the machine stops and the customer needs to know that the people behind it can respond quickly and get the operation moving again.
That confidence is also built through proof. Dale can point to many established blue-chip manufacturers and retailers across South Africa that are already using motive.li technology.
“The batteries are out there performing. We have issues, like anyone does, but we fix them quickly. I can’t tell you how much I push service backup.”
It’s clear that for Dale, the value of motive.li lies not only in the battery itself, but in the local people and After Sales support standing behind it.
As Dale steps into his new role leading motive.li South Africa, this is the experience he brings with him: a deep understanding of the equipment at the heart of warehouses, factories and distribution centres across the country.
At the core is a commitment to finding solutions that power the customer’s operation properly, and that begins with speaking the right language.
This is the second feature in our series introducing the people behind our Sales team: the people who understand the application and speak the customer’s language.