Page 11 - HUB-4 Magazine Issue 77

Warwick Ward Focus
overnight once Covid restrictions were imposed, albeit service and parts sales crucially continued. When we realised that it may be sometime before a return to normal, we decided to gamble on the recovery being more of a sharp ‘V’ shape and that stock availability would be critical to our ongoing success. With that strategy in mind, we were bold in difficult circumstances in placing substantial forward orders with our brands. Fortunately, that vision very much played out as restrictions lifted as in the end the demand was such that we
needed even more stock than we had ordered! We calculated high demand as our customers would need to freshen and replace their fleets having not done so for the best part of a year.”
Warwick Ward have always had a strong position in servicing the waste recycling sector and during Covid continued to also see a strong demand for the hire of Case, Terex and Keestrack machines throughout that period, so for them there was never a slow-down on that side of their business. As demand then increased it was more a question of waiting for the OEMs to catch up!
Ashley, continued, “Like everyone, we did not have a crystal ball in the UK as regards the post-Covid world and although we appeared to be performing better than Europe, we just needed certainty and a plan. Our customer base across our existing geographical areas was thriving and there was no negativity in the market, which enabled us to concentrate on part of our growth strategy which is based on expanding the business into London and the Southeast. As a northern business we needed to get a foothold in the south and we knew that the Case and Keestrack brands were the vehicles to enable us to fulfil this. It was apparent that the expansion of our CASE territory was key to our strategic growth plan and the opportunity to take on the southeast was fantastic for us as this is where we could see a large proportion of our growth coming from.
“When we took on the additional territory for Case it was just pre-covid so although we knew it was an exciting opportunity, we are only in the last 12 months really seeing the rewards from the significant investment in our new depot in Harlow. Scott Bunting who has been with the business 12 years, agreed to relocate from our head office in Barnsley to head up the southern Case depot based in the south - a great demonstration of both his and our own commitment to the success of the project. We firmly believe there is a huge amount of potential over the next 5-10 years, now we have this foothold in the South.”
www.hub-4.com Nov/December 22 - Issue 77
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