Two key events have impacted heavily on business in 2020, according to John Weedon, Managing Director of the Weedon Group.
The first is Covid-19. The second is an imminent Brexit. With or without a Brexit deal, the Weedon Group will continue to meet all its customers’ needs – for the same reasons it is weathering coronavirus restrictions.
The company has operated fully throughout the pandemic, producing essential packaging for food and drink manufacturers and eCommerce packaging. With the lockdown in March, orders for secondary packaging fell sharply while demand from the online retail market soared. So Weedon changed tack.
A combination of flexibility and independence meant it could respond, often within tighter than usual deadlines and sometimes with innovative new products. It rapidly expanded its eCommerce packaging range and launched an online packaging shop – at the same time as dealing with changes to traditional ways of doing business, with customers in lockdown and social distancing in both manufacturing plants.
Weedon is now preparing for Brexit using the same flexible approach. It sources raw materials from independent paper mills around the world so it can adapt more easily to changing circumstances. For many years, the firm has favoured the smaller UK ports, which anticipate less disruption post-Brexit. Weedon does not expect problems importing raw paper, but has stockpiled supplies as a contingency, and its own in-house corrugator provides the ability to control its supply of corrugated sheet board.
Weedon’s flexibility and independence has allowed it to adjust rapidly to new ways of doing business during the coronavirus pandemic and will enable it to trade successfully in a post-Brexit world. It is only by adapting to change in this way that businesses will survive the events of 2020 and rebuild the UK’s shattered economy.
