Happy New Year! We hope you had a good Christmas, and managed to find time to relax on what was a chaotic 2020!

Despite lots of pressures the industry faced, we feel really positive about what we achieved last year in face of adversities with Covid. We opened our 13th branch in Leicester back in May 2020 and we’re soon to be opening branches in York and Peterborough. We’re looking to establish our key values that we hope will develop our brand and enhance our commitment to our customers.

We are going to implement a new ERP system, all designed to create a much easier way for our customers to work with us. Our new digital service is also something to look forward to this year. Our plan last year was to open our training centres, something we weren’t able to use as much as we like. We’ve got plans in place to reopen these. We recruited over 20 people to the business last year, and we want to continue to recruit new talent so we can further strengthen our teams as well as develop their skills to help them establish a career with us for the long term.

We know we’ve got more challenges ahead, Covid hasn’t gone away and we fully expect it will continue to bring challenges through 2021. We have developed covid safe practices and in the second lockdown we did not close any branches and kept our full service going. We are ready for the unexpected!

BREXIT

We have now left the EU after long and uncertain negotiations. Brexit will add another level of complexity to our sector while we transition through the process. Rest assured, the Management Team has spent many hours planning to manage and reduce any impact. We have taken steps to ensure our stock levels are at an all time high before the Brexit deadline. We are working closely with our key suppliers to understand the short term impact on product availability, forecasting for the first quarter and placing forward orders to ensure we can support our customers.

Our purchasing team is in regular contact with our suppliers to make sure we stay abreast of any developments and can act quickly to any issues.

If you have any concerns please pick up the phone and give us a call, we are always here to help.

You can read the full welcome letter from Andy LEW’s MD in the January 2021 LEW’S NEWS in branch now or online.