At Whittan we turn empty space into working space. We have been expanding capabilities and maximising opportunities with storage for over 70 years. Home to Britain’s most trusted brands: Link51, Apex, HiStore, Polypal UK, Probe, Link Lockers, and Linbins, we have storage products and solutions for any industry, environment or requirement.
Nick Thompson, National Shelving sales manager at Whittan, speaks to Warehouse & Logistics News.
What are your best-known products/solutions/services?
We’re best known for our shelving, lockers, and adjustable pallet racking which we manufacture in our UK and European facilities. The products are supplied in a wide range of specifications for multiple applications. They serve customers across a wide variety of markets and sectors with various capabilities. With our design services and using our products in our storage solutions we ensure storage is right for any operation and capacity.
Which industry sectors are your customers in and which ones are growing fastest?
Our products cover all and every industry and sector, all centred around customer product storage. These include retail, ecommerce, healthcare, food and drink, public sector, pharmaceutical, military and manufacturing, museums, office and archives. We’ve seen demand in retail and e-tail grow significantly since the pandemic and we’ve been working hard to support these industries with our products.
What are your most recent product innovations?
We are currently developing our shelving ranges which will come later this year but we are continuously innovating spaces, and expanding capabilities with all of our products due to the ever-changing demands in storage.
What are the major trends and developments affecting your category and your customers, and how are you responding?
Last mile delivery services and click and collect local hubs continue to challenge our customers with the growth of online transactions. Our range of accessories with our shelving systems have helped improve operations and picking in this area. The interaction of storage products with automation and technology also continues to expand and therefore we continue to develop which also includes lockers for the storage and charging of handheld technology.
Can you tell us about any recent customer contracts and how you helped the customer meet their challenges?
We recently completed a job for International Logistics Group UK, providing a combination of some of our bestselling products for their new warehouse in Northampton. The addition of our products enabled greater storage capacity and the potential to process up to 35,000 orders per day, doing what we do best and expanding capabilities with storage.
How does business in 2021 compare to previous years? What’s your strategy for succeeding in the current climate?
We remain committed to supporting our customers and our business systems and teams of expert staff afford us the opportunity to overcome new and previous challenges. Good planning and communication as well as manufacturing our products in the UK does present advantages to our UK-based customers.
What’s the latest news from your company?
We’ve been continuing to focus on making it easier than ever to find your ideal storage solution. Storage Direct, our transaction website, communicates all our latest offers and makes it quick and easy for our customers to get some of our most popular products. We also continue to offer more updates via our social media to make us more accessible to our customers and trading sectors.
Can you tell us about any areas where you’re currently making technical advances e.g., safety, sustainability, environment?
We are currently upgrading a range of machines within our shelving factory to improve speed, quantities, and quality of our products. Doing our bit for the environment is very important to us here at Whittan, and these upgrades will lead to a reduction in our waste and energy usage. We are also upgrading our CRM system to improve our customer interactions as well as giving regular updates on our products and services. Our technical design system continues to be integrated and advanced for quicker and clearer presentation of information and designs.
Are you investing in staff training and skills development?
Yes, we are investing in apprenticeship programmes in several areas of our business, as well as continuous development of existing staff.
Are you taking part in any major trade shows? Can you tell us what you’ll be exhibiting there?
We’ve got plans to attend several exhibitions but the big news is that we’ll be exhibiting at IMHX in September at the NEC! We’re really excited about it and we’ve got some big plans in the works so make sure you get registered to attend as soon as you can because you won’t want to miss it!
Whittan
t: 01952 682251
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