Member Profile
The Tandet Group – Distribution Solutions That Deliver!
What’s in a name? The basis of the way the company thinks, operates and evolves. But let us get to that in a bit…
Tandet is truly an Oakville business that has exhibited the spirit to realize success both within and beyond the boundaries of both Oakville and Halton, but is still grounded in Oakville. Starting in the car and full service truck leasing business, when FSL was in its infancy, the business was first established at an old gas station on what is now Cornwall Road. Moving next to an ex-tannery on Cross Avenue, across from the main Oakville Go Station, Tandet was first incorporated as Oakville Drive Yourself Limited. In the late 70s the business was purchased by an Oakville resident, John Tilley. It was operating, at that time, as Tandem Rentals. Today, John’s sons lead the company development, with a third generation keeping the focus current!
After dropping the car rental line of business in the first year, a dispute over the ownership of the “Tandem” name with a larger company in Toronto, required the cash “challenged” ingenuity of a true entrepreneur. Take the decals in the store room, all 100 of them, and cut the capital “T” off the front of 30. Peel the ‘m’ off the back of the logos on the 30 trucks and replace with the “T”. Modify the rest of the decals in the store room for future use. Tandem Rentals had now become TandeT Rentals!
Since that time the company moved its head office to Speers Road and has grown from this one location in Oakville to 17, with current locations throughout Ontario, as well as Winnipeg, Carman and Brandon, MB and Montreal, PQ. The Tandet Group has evolved into four operational companies focused on different areas of expertise in the trucking industry: full service truck leasing and rental; truck dealership; dedicated trucking; and distribution logistics. Tandet services customers in the chemical, food manufacturing, food services, agriculture, manufacturing, automotive, electronics and metals industries for distribution. We serve multiple private carriers and trucking companies for rentals, leases and new&used truck sales through our Kenworth dealership. Since the early 80s, Tandet has been a member of NationaLease, an affiliation of owner-operated, private leasing companies providing reciprocal services to each other across North America, through a system that is bigger than our largest competitors. We assist in managing our customers’ assets, through truck related service solutions continent wide via our 24/7 call center from BC to Newfoundland, and provide distribution management solutions in AB, PQ, MB, Texas, North Carolina, Ohio, and Indiana (and just about any other place they need our help in North America). We have supplied our customers with freight brokerage services to and from almost every province and most US states, for both outbound and inbound finished products, raw materials and specialized components/services. We know that everyone has a distribution challenge they need help to solve!
In 2005 Tandet was named to Canada’s 50 Best Managed Companies listing. Tandet has received numerous service, safety and industry recognition awards and has been an ISO 9001 registrant since 1998 (achieving the revised ISO 9001:2008 status in 2009).
Now… back to that name change. Why was it so important? The distribution industry is one that is the most critical to the success of almost every business – and it is not just those trucks on the road. If you can manufacture, sell, or acquire the right goods for your customers, they need to get to your customers in the most effective way possible. This service needs to be timely, without damage and delivered in a manner that allows the customer to realize value. It needs to respond to the “hiccups” that occur in the service business in a timely and professional manner. It needs to be able to “fix” what goes wrong…because somehow 1 in 100 of our service items has a blip we need to fix. We carry the attitude that WE want YOU to get your customer’s next order, too! Tandet uses the same ingenuity used to develop an “original name”, every day, to help our customers succeed by addressing their distribution needs and challenges.
Our operational commitment is communicated in our tag line - Distribution Solutions that Deliver! We don’t bring our customers a canned program to mirror their current system. We look for the things that will assist them in becoming better…and then we look to grow with them as their distribution system allows them to prosper, assisting them to develop (and re-develop) the right solution for them.
What’s in a name? At Tandet – insight, inventiveness and ingenuity…Distribution Solutions that Deliver! Visit us at www.tandet.com