Ready Fire Aim: The Mainfreight Story

The lively, insider story of the rise and rise of New Zealand's most successful logistics company.

This is the story of a company built on the belief that with passion anything is possible. As they say at Mainfreight, 'Go anywhere as long as it is forward'.

Mainfreight was founded in 1977 by the visionary Bruce Plested, who set out to make the company a family, a team, where everyone has a share in the riches and where the word 'management' is banned.

The Mainfreight instruction manual is short: Feel the fear but do it anyway. This is a world where budgets are deemed ‘b******t’. Why spend time preparing figures that are invariably out of date before the ink is dry? Just make more than last year. It's also a world based on generosity: Mainfreight is the backing force behind Books in Homes, and offers tertiary scholarships to the children of all its employees.

Did the rise to NZX sharemarket darling all go smoothly? Not for a minute. Initially there would be catastrophic ventures in Australia and America and finally a jaw-dropping moment in Europe when Don Braid and his team made their biggest purchase ever only to see most of the turnover and half the profit walk out the door.

This book takes you on a warts-and-all exploration of Mainfreight's journey from small transport company at the bottom of the world to truly successful global logistics company.