COMMENT AND OPINION | Malcolm Scott


MALCOLM SCOTT OPINION


The KBSA corporate chair and Swift trading director looks back on how the distributor responded to a year of unprecedented disruption triggered by the arrival of Covid-19 and a global pandemic


Responding to the pressures of Covid


It is easy to forget that amid the turmoil of Covid, Brexit happened, contributing to major supply issues as UK and


continental ports struggled to get traffic through


t’s now a year since Covid turned our lives upside down. Looking back, what has changed at my employer Swift, within the kitchen sector and the wider market? Swift is a traditional distributor, founded over 45 years ago by Jim Swift. It supplies the likes of Currys and Euronics with goods from factories throughout the UK and the world. Moving with Franke and Bosch into the emerging fitted kitchen sector a few years later, Jim then passed the business to his son, Andrew Swift, who navigated its progress for over 20 years before selling it to Chris and Sharon Honer less than 12 months before Covid arrived. The Swift business has had its share of knocks over the years. An early exclusive territory agreement with Zanussi was dissolved when Electrolux bought the brand around 30 years ago, knocking over 50% off Swift’s turnover. A few years later, the demise of the Creda brand, which was at the time around 50% of our business, was a further hurdle to overcome. So turbulence and unexpected disruption are not new


I


to the business. But Covid and its impact are much wider than these company-specific changes and even more disruptive than the economic crash of 2007/2008. Swift quickly adapted and improved to cope with the country-wide changes and secure whatever business still existed


for the core activity distribution to the trade.


During the first lockdown, when several of our competitors furloughed their whole businesses, Swift continued to operate. Our construction sector division,


of big-brand appliance


supplying appliances, sinks and taps to major projects, was classified as ‘essential’. Our kitchen studio division saw the greatest disruption, as studios were forced to close, but we continued to offer a full national service to allow them to finish partially completed jobs and provide emergency services for their existing customers. Our independent electrical customer base was also devastated by the requirements of compulsory store closure, but many continued to trade on their websites. Our house builder division fell somewhere between the complete shutdown of studios and the normal service of construction projects, disrupted by the requirements of social distancing and new safe practices.


Fast to action Managing director Chris Honer immediately recognised the need to take advantage of the availability of team members who were normally immersed in day-to-day trading and redirect them to develop routines that would position it well to cope with the eventual end of lockdown. The project team worked tirelessly to introduce a


whole new transport and warehouse routine. Resources were allocated to developing construction sector projects and significant extra resources were allocated to the builders merchant sector and to developing a service for buying groups such as Sirius, Euronics, MNBS, and NBG. A whole new programme was introduced to identify key stock lines and ensure that we were able to respond to the changing supply chain. And social media engagement was developed to ensure that our customers are kept informed. It is easy to forget that amid the turmoil of Covid,


Brexit happened, contributing to major supply issues as UK and continental ports struggled to get traffic through. Covid also led to huge disruption of factory output and consumers sitting at home all over Europe suddenly had time to sort home-improvement issues, which led to a huge jump in consumer demand for appliances, sinks and taps.


The Swift trade website has been substantially upgraded with significant extra EDI services, making it easier for our customers to do business with us. A click- and-collect service was introduced for the first shutdown, allowing customers to offer an emergency service for clients who were without working appliances. It’s certainly not been an easy 12 months. Many of us have considerably more grey hair than we had last year. We are now in a world where video calls are common and shaking hands on a deal is rare, where working from home and homeschooling, alongside the needs of holding on to a job, have made life rather complicated at times– but life goes on.


18 · April 2021


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