EXECUTIVE VIEW TALK IT’S GOOD TO Julian Milligan Jimmy Stewart
Julian Milligan (Kellaway): Firstly, I think huge credit needs to go to the NBG Central Team for how they reacted to the Covid-19 crisis. As a board, we have been having pretty regular conference calls and Zoom calls. But the Central Team has done exceptionally well, picking up where they needed to because the Partners were totally focussed on their own businesses. So, the internal team picked up the slack and as an organisation, I think NBG adapted very quickly. We made quite quick changes to how we were paying Suppliers in terms of retaining the rebate element as opposed to paying in full and then getting the rebate later. So, you know, preserving cash within our businesses, but working in conjunction with the Suppliers.
From May onwards, the market was much more stable, mainly for mixed to heavy side merchants; the light side merchants had a longer return to some level of normality, and, in fact, it’s been a reasonably good year. The challenges have been, and are increasingly, supply routes and shortages, with problems getting material through for lots of reasons. The challenge for us as a board in 2021 will be trying to look longer term, I think we’ve been very focused on the short term, which was absolutely the right thing to do. You know, rolling our sleeves up and getting stuff done. This year, we’ll need to be a bit more strategic in our thinking.
Keith Olver (Palladium): We were getting new challenges coming through daily, but because we were reacting quickly and decisively to them, we were able to meet them.
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2020 was the year where communications took on an ever more vital role as NBG Executive Board members Julian Milligan, Rex Nye, Jimmy Stewart and Keith Olver discuss.
Instigating the rebate retention scheme was one example of that. It was important that we kept the cashflow within the Partners whilst still ensuring the Supplier got paid. Again, hats off to the Central Team. Without their input, taking a huge work load off Partners, it would have been much more difficult. It allowed us as Partners to concentrate on our own businesses because we were literally firefighting left and right, upside down and backwards.
As a board, we also encouraged the regions to work well together by having their own WhatsApp groups. These kept them updated with what was going on within their regions and allowed them to share best practice. As we get to the year end, I agree that it’s the supply issues that are causing more trouble. We have Partners who simply cannot get the stock on their shelves, so that is really challenging. Hopefully, 2021 will be a great improvement, although I think the first or second quarter is still going to be very challenging.
Jimmy Stewart (Stewart Building Services): Up in Scotland, it was slightly different for us because all the Scottish merchants closed in March. So, we were in a situation of not really knowing what to do. The WhatsApp group was a great lifeline for all the merchants, we could discuss with other merchants what they were doing, what their problems were. From March, we were able to introduce Click and Collect, which was mostly to private customers. As April got going, that initial demand became huge, so we brought back all our staff from furlough and put all the Covid restrictions in
Rex Nye
Keith Olver
place so that we were fully compliant. Then going into May, demand continued which meant that the material shortages became a major issue. We’ve had to up our staffing levels to deal with the increased demand. That’s when we were really glad to be members of NBG. The Central Team worked really closely with Suppliers to manage the allocations. Basically, as an independent, I would have struggled getting stock if I hadn’t been a NBG member.
There are a lot of shortages, although not so many on the heavyside, mostly timber and the lightside; it’s very hard to get delivery dates on some product areas. Hopefully we will be getting into next year with our stock levels building up. Looking at forward enquiries, it should be a busy start to the year. I don’t see our situation changing much before third quarter of next year. We just have to hope that the vaccinations work and that things can get moving again. 2021 has got to be a better year than 2020.
Rex Nye (Nyes Building Supplies): It was quite interesting how everything that happened this year meant everyone turned to technology. A lot of businesses were fired to up their technology game and it helped a lot. It’s the forward progression that we are having to concentrate on now, and where we’re going to find ourselves with supply and stock and an increase in prices.
KO: Also the close relationships with the supply chain, which we have through our eight Category Management Teams will be key to
January 2021
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