The organisation’s Scottish arm focusses on comprehensive support, a responsive service and reliable delivery.
Carl F Groupco’s established distribution centre in Cumbernauld supplies hardware across Scotland including the Highlands and Offshore Islands. The full catalogue of Carl F Groupco lines, which totals over 7,000 products, is offered to the Scottish market. The organisation’s Scottish arm focusses on comprehensive support, a responsive service and reliable delivery.
In this report for Windows Active, Pamela Wilson - a long-serving Regional Sales Manager for Carl F Groupco, who has represented the organisation in Scotland since 2001, explains the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the Scottish market and the company’s Cumbernauld operation.
“Scotland initially went into lockdown in March 2020 and correspondingly, our Cumbernauld depot was temporarily closed. Our facility in Peterborough serviced our customers who remained open through lockdown but we recognised that it was important to re-open our Cumbernauld centre as soon as we safely could, and we were able to do this at the start of August.
“The country gradually started reopening for business which resulted in a consistent month by month increase in sales. The gradual, steady growth in Scotland is in contrast to other parts of the UK, which saw a very dramatic V shape recovery.
“The phased restart of business in Scotland saw most fabricators opening with limited capacity to complete specific projects. Slowly more capacity was introduced, with a strong focus on the health and safety issues of social distancing and staff protection. Many administration roles for the industry are still home based.
“In line with our colleagues in the rest of the UK, we are ensuring that essential customer contact is maintained. We pride ourselves in our service and recognise that some face to face meetings are required, but safety is paramount and we ensure that this is a priority for both our staff and our customers.
“As time goes on, we are increasingly seeing variations in the restrictions between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom, a situation that we are monitoring and we are ready to respond to should those restrictions affect our Cumbernauld operations.”
Reflecting Carl F Groupco’s growth in the region, and the importance of the company’s dedicated depot in Cumbernauld, investment to improve the facilities were made at the start of 2020 before the pandemic. Enhancements included the installation of additional pallet racking to provide increased storage and an upgrade to staff facilities. Pamela Wilson represents the Carl F Groupco organisation in both Scotland and Ireland.