Written by Adrian Bradley, Managing Director
Never before has our job been or felt so essential.
Just recently the Government clarified that the transport and the whole of the logistics sector is ‘essential’ and key to keeping the country moving during COVID-19.
At Fortec we are enormously proud to be playing such a pivotal role and are committed to supporting our 80 plus members – haulage and transport companies dotted throughout the UK.
By looking after our members, we are, all of us working together, playing a pivotal role in keeping the UK’s supply chain active – not just pharmaceuticals and food but everything from household goods to garden products.
These most unusual of circumstances have bought the whole logistics industry together, and on a day to day basis, this means even more round the clock collaboration than usual.
Our support team, finance, marketing and IT teams and the Network team are all hard at work, based in their home offices, supporting the business remotely. We now have daily calls with each other about today’s challenges. We have regular update emails, conference calls and are working together, in collaboration - collectively committed to tackling the challenge of keeping the UK’s supply chain moving.
Despite the pandemic it is, almost, business as usual - albeit we are no longer working alongside each other at our HQ in Northamptonshire but are now working from our individual homes.
Our commercial team, who would usually spend most of their days on the road, travelling the length and breadth of the UK to visit members, are now also home based. Every member gets a phone call every day – we check in, find out how our members are, provide support, get updates and are on hand to help.
We are embracing all the latest technology to talk ‘virtually’, which means we are still covering and travelling throughout the UK – but doing this using technology rather than vehicles. We are grateful for the government’s furloughing scheme and business loans – key for many companies across the UK.
At this point Fortec has not needed to take up these offers of support, we are fully operational. Our staff are either home working (and the likes of Zoom and Skype are a daily, sometimes even hourly, occurrence) or they are at our Northamptonshire Hub, adhering to the strict social distancing rules, and wearing PPE.
The logistics sector has seen a ‘call to arms’ during this COVID-19 crisis and at Fortec Distribution Network we are proud to be playing a part in something so vital and are extremely grateful to our front line, operational staff who continue to work in our warehouses, helping to keep the country moving.
Never before has logistics been or felt so essential.
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