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Case Study: Wilko

Summary

With current labour challenges across the sector, Wilko Retail Ltd were facing a team member short fall on the run up to peak Christmas demand in their two distribution centres at Worksop in Nottinghamshire and Magor in Newport. 

Our merchandising team identified an opportunity to work collaboratively with Wilko to help support their requirements at a time when merchandising in-store is traditionally quieter, to reduce customer disruption during a key sales period.

Challenges

Distribution centres have lots of new Health and Safety challenges, such as lorry routes and forklift truck movements that the teams were not used to working with. 

The team received extensive training beforehand and they were then able to support in a number of roles including picking stock, loading store deliveries, offloading containers and organising recycling and salvage. 

Results

The Bluestones One merchandising team were able to support both distribution centres with up to 60 people, around the clock, over a 7-week period to help fulfil their peak demand. 

This will now become a successful seasonal collaboration and opportunity for both businesses going forward.

Meet the team: Martin Sweeney

Meet Martin Sweeney, Installations Director

How did your journey at Bluestones One begin and what has it been like since?I joined the business in February 2020 and was really excited with my role and new opportunity to develop. Unfortunately, I was grounded slightly by the pandemic. This then presented the business and me with lots of obstacles which we had never experienced but with the support from the internal team and from our partner company, Bluestones Investment Group (BIG), we overcame these. Whilst many businesses have failed to survive, Installations continued to develop and grow its customer base. The next few years may present many challenges, but I am excited to drive the business forward in the coming years. What do you enjoy about working in this industry?I believe you must be a self-motivator and be ready to tackle daily challenges. Each day presents itself with new challenges, and whilst this can be difficult, you get a sense of achievement when you deliver for the customer. One thing that really excites me is the opportunity to see lots of the UK whilst on client and site meetings. We have a fantastic internal support team who are young and ambitious, and this allows us to develop.

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