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Tim Curtis, also shares fears over the future of jobs. “Once furlough support is withdrawn and the extent of the damage is clear, there will be further businesses which will need to shed staff, whether to avoid bankruptcy or as a result of an administration.”
Despite these challenges, the consensus is overwhelmingly optimistic for the year ahead amongst those with a multichannel approach and which have adapted to meet changing consumer demands. Supplier organisations have also evolved to meet rising demand for their services, notably those focused on home deliveries.
Like all businesses in March 2020, Parcelhub had to react to government guidance and focus on keeping their employees safe whilst continuing to offer a high-quality service to their customers. Steve Marjoram, managing director at Parcelhub explained: “We mobilised 60+ people to work from home, covering sales, IT, CS, finance and account management. We had to focus on keeping our front-line workers moving whilst protecting them from the threat of Covid-19. We worked with customers and suppliers to ensure that we had Covid safe work spaces and collection procedures that allowed us to keep up with customer demands and keep our workforce safe in a fast-moving operational environment.”
One industry source said the 62
transition to remote working had enabled their business to recruit skilled new team members from a wider catchment area by offering home working options.
Serious Brands’, Alex Pratt, said the pandemic had allowed his business to “improve the mix of skills and aptitudes on the team” and has contributed to “the best trading year” in the company’s history.
Chris Wheatley from Peter Hahn has also seen numerous positive changes to the business. “Our efficiency of sales to costs is better. Our systems are better. Our IT infrastructure is better. Our management is better,” he says. “We have improved our decision-making processes. It is hard to see a negative, showing that difficult times can have a positive impact.”
Another sector expert said: “We’re targeting growth, considering acquisitions, taking on more people, and will focus on developing our offering. We will be benefiting from all of the hard work which our team members and supplier partners have invested over this (past) trying year and finding ever more ways to delight our customers.”
Christopher Nieper of David Nieper revealed how the company had responded to the crisis by manufacturing PPE.
“When the first lockdown happened, we turned the factory over to making PPE for our healthcare heroes. Within a week of lockdown,
we brought nearly all factory staff back to make scrubs, gowns and clinical hoods. This became far bigger than we envisaged, eventually supplying 25 major hospitals around the country.”
ProCook’s Daniel O’Neil says: “The pandemic tested us to the limits, but it’s proven what an agile business we are and we’re set up well now for ongoing growth.”
And, businesses have taken the opportunity to praise their workers for supporting them through the pandemic.
“Aside from great sales figures it’s been fantastic to have our operation tested to the limits and see it emerge stronger and more robust,” says Mr O’Neil. “We’ve seen how our employees in all areas of the business have stepped up to the challenges they’ve faced, and in a lot of ways it’s brought us closer together as a company.”
A sector expert added: “We’ve been posting some of the best sales figures in our history. Whilst we don’t wish to sound arrogant, it is because we have been able to respond quickly and effectively to customer demands. However, we do have every sympathy for businesses like Nisbets which had their trade torn away when the catering sector was forced to lockdown, for those supplying salons and gyms, hotels and travel. Our biggest challenge now as a country us to find a ‘new normal’, to get trade back to where it once was and get more people back to work.”
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