MERCHANT FOCUS: COWAL BUILDING & PLUMBING SUPPLIES
W
hen the Covid-19 pandemic took hold and the UK Government introduced lockdown in March 2020, it
changed how businesses interacted with each other. When every bit of interaction between you and your customers has to be done through a Perspex screen and face masks, it changes that interaction. “We’re all feeling a bit like Hannibal Lecter to be honest. There’s no camaraderie, and it doesn’t have the same feel about it.” That’s what Stewart Shaw managing director of Scottish independent Cowal Building & Plumbing Supplies feels about it all.
“Not only do we have creens and face- masks and hand-sanitiser bottles all over every branch, but we are holding more and more meetings over virtual networks.,” he says. Shaw has recently been re-elected as a board member of buying group NBG and says that all interaction is now via conference calls and Microsoft Teams meetings rather than physical face-to-face meetings, whether that is the Category Management Teams, the Executive Board or the Regional Meetings. Actual physical interaction between the partners has diminished but the frequency has increased, Shaw says. “For example, regional meetings increased dramatically at the beginning of lockdown; if they weren’t weekly, they were most certainly fortnightly. We were having meetings and calls to discuss
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COWAL COPES WITH COVID CHANGES
Covid-19 has changed how merchants do business. Stewart Shaw, managing director of Cowal Building & Plumbing Supplies, tells Fiona Russell-Horne how the independent merchant adapted to operating under the new circumstances.
the various impacts and issues - how we would deal with furlough, what the furlough rules were, what did we think was going to happen - and trying to come up with a strategy going forward. It was a tremendous team exercise.”
One of the things that Shaw says he was determined to ensure right from the start was the payment of suppliers’ invoices via NMBS. “I am particularly passionate about NMBS. I feel that NMBS have a hugely significant role to play for independent merchants and not only for their invoice factoring and electronic invoicing and the back-office stuff which is tremendously helpful for independents but everything that they can offer as a package. I want all of us - NMBS, NBG and Cowal - to
be able to get through this whole thing intact. We will no doubt all end up with a few bruises and bashes but I want to ensure that we still have NMBS at the end of this because they a very important link in the chain,” he says. Being a part of the NBG family was a massive help both in business terms and personal terms, Shaw says. “NBG was a wonderful support Network to us as a Business as we knew that we weren’t on our own, we knew that we all in NBG were all going through this together. I was able to network with lots of other like-minded people. I was also tremendously grateful for our chairman, David Syzmanski, who really showed his stature within the industry. The experience gained through his senior positions meant he
www.buildersmerchantsjournal.net October 2020
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