Page 9 - HFG Monthly Group Newsletter #5

GM
General Manager - CKO Author Nick Turner
Logistics
Suez Canal Blockage
On the 23rd of March a giant container ship the length of four football pitches became wedged across Egypt’s Suez Canal, blocking on the world’s busiest trading routes. The impact for our business created more delays for receiving goods from our overseas factories. Although the vessel named The Evergreen was freed six days later after a salvage operation involving a flotilla of powerful tug boats and a dredging vessels that shifted an estimated 30,000 cubic metres of mud and sand, delays within our supply chain are only now easing off. Demand for sea freight compared to pre-COVID levels has now increased to get goods back on the shelves of the UK and the previous issue of empty containers at destination docks easing. Consequentially the blockage is likely to increase sea freight costs by 8%.
The unexpected event on top of the already known delays from COVID, Chinese New Year and Brexit created many challenges for CKO, which involved the expediting of other orders in the pipeline to meet customer demand. The goods news is we are now receiving in the stock we need for the pent up demand to fulfill the backorders from our customers for the much needed Direct Vision Standard (DVS) kits. Necessary steps have also been taken to mitigate future supply chain issues to support our sales team and customers.
New Starters
Olivier Edy - Warehouse
Anniversaries
This month Mary McLoughlin will have been with us for 8 years.
Also this month back in 2002 Tracy Kilgannon started with CKO making her a part of the team now for 19 years!
British English American English
Birthdays
Tracy Kilgannon
Sales/Technical
4G LiveView DVRs
More of CKO’s customers are now connecting to our LiveView 4G DVR (Digital Video Recorder) solution, installation solution providers along with end customers are seeing the benefits. Over the past few months DVR sales of our 4G connected solution has increased where we have hit our 1000th system ID on the platform, our sales team is pushing the benefits for our customers who service fleets where the main benefit is to respond to product defects and being able to identify the issue with the CKO technical team. “The last thing that anyone of us want is for footage not be recording or a camera being out!”
‘Martin Harniman – CKO Technical Support’. Fundamentally we are turning negatives into positives, electronic devices have the potential for failure for many different reasons, being able to respond quickly and accurately to close off customer queries is key. More activity on the support for CKO’s DVR range is underway with video guides, FAQs and technical support documentation being the main focus for improvement.
• Flat
• Nappy
• Crisps
• Biscuit
• Sweet
• Jumper
• Takeaway
• Apartment • Diaper
• Chips
• Cookie
• Candy
• Sweater • Takeout
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