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Find out more about PHS Teacrate from the inside! David Wicks, MD of Teacrate, will be sharing his thoughts, ideas and even his feelings on this blog, so that you can keep in touch with what's happening at Teacrate and across the industry.
Archived posts can be found using the links to the right of this page. Contact us with your comments!
Wednesday 3rd March With a gloomy February behind us, and the green shoots of Spring to look forward to, its still a mixed picture out there on the economic front. One piece of news on the positive side - the financial strength of businesses has been shown to be increasing – with Experian’s latest Insolvency Index revealing that in January the rate of business failure fell to its lowest point since June 2007. On the other hand, the public sector braces itself for a major hit with cost cutting being top of the agenda. A lot of activity is expected here over the coming months that will have far-reaching effects throughout the UK economy. Civil service re-locations are being looked at, with up to 15,000 posts to be targeted for relocation out of the South East. A report on this is due for release this month – so that one should make interesting reading for all of us involved in the commercial moves sector. Friday 19th February Reloc8, an up-and-coming player in corporate relocation, corporate interiors and workspace consultancy has recently signed a 4-year exclusive crate supply deal with Teacrate. We are, of course, delighted about this development and excited too, about the prospect of working collaboratively with Reloc8 and their clients to support their new ‘Relocrate’ service with our branded crates. ‘Relocrate’ is a tailored crate rental service forming part of Reloc8’s suite of fully intergrated moves and moves management services. With reassurance of product availability and support on a national basis, Reloc8 chose Teacrate as their strategic partner for this collaborative venture, which I’m sure, will translate into a very positive development of the Reloc8 brand. Wednesday 10th February We’re making final preparations for our presence at next week’s Movers & Storer’s Show at the Telford International Centre, and it looks to be a busy one now with all the stand space fully booked. Key Teacrate staff involved with the industry will be attending, including Simon Johns (Sales Director), Paul Bullock (Key Account Manager) and Dave Ewart (Business Development Manager). Teacrate are exhibiting on Stand G73, so please, if you are attending the show, drop by and say hello! We’ll have our leading products on display and our specialist team will be happy to assist you with any enquiries. Look out for our show special offer as well! Thursday 4th February Following Teacrate’s acquisition of GB Nationwide back last year, we were pleased to continue their annual charitable tradition of providing the free use of crates across London to support 'Crisis Christmas'. Crisis, the homeless charity has been running their highly successful 'Crisis Christmas' operation for the past 38 years, where essential support and services are brought together and provided to the City’s most vulnerable. Each year 'Crisis Christmas' allows the homeless to be provided with food, companionship, a warm and safe place to stay, medical care and specialist advice from a number of centres around London over the festive period. The availability of crates is essential with all the logistical challenges that this operation presents. The latest 2009 operation helped many people on the streets of London and we are happy to support such a worthy cause. Read more about Teacrate's involvement in Crisis Christmas here. Wednesday 27th January For the smaller removals companies out there - you may be interested to know that Teacrate can now offer removals packaging DIRECT TO YOUR CLIENTS. If you don’t currently offer packaging supplies or are looking to reduce your stockholding of these items, then why not consider partnering with our online packaging company teacratepackaging.co.uk. Here, home-movers can browse our extensive product range and order online for delivery direct to their door the next day, anywhere in the UK. By partnering with teacratepackaging.co.uk you can provide extra value to your customers, and, as all referral orders are subject to commission – you could earn nicely out of it as well! To find out more please contact Martin Hunt on 0800 980 6996. Wednesday 20th January The CMOTY 2010 competition entry deadline is looming with just a few days to go before entry forms have to be submitted. If you haven’t already got your entry form and guidance notes you can download them from our updated CMOTY webpage, by clicking here. This year there are no award categories – the award has been designed to recognise and reward best practices and partnerships across the board, with the judging criteria focusing on; overall quality, budgets, client participation, schedule, innovation, flexibility, project management and communication process. One overall winner will be chosen from three finalists and if last year is anything to go by, the standards will be extremely high and the competition intense. So, why not give it a shot and get your entry in now! The deadline for entries to the competition organisers - the BAR - is 29th January 2010. Wednesday 13th January 2010 Happy New Year! Well here we are in 2010! So far, the new year has greeted us with some pretty extreme weather conditions! The recent weather though has been a minor diversion from the big question on many people’s minds as to when we are likely to start moving out of recession. Many business people including M&S Chairman Sir Stuart Rose expect things to remain tough in 2010. Teacrate has seen a promising start to the year having been chosen as strategic partner by commercial relocation company Reloc8 Ltd in a four year crate supply agreement. This is significant for us - it is testament to the ongoing commitment that Teacrate gives its customers, underpinned by our investment in market leading products and best in class service. Wednesday 10th December The Noah’s Ark Trust does vital work to help children and young people through the very difficult time of bereavement. Through Britannia, one of Teacrate’s commercial moves customers we have recently donated 100 crates to support the Trust in its move into new premises in Worcestershire. The Trust’s, larger and more spacious new premises will provide the capacity needed for them to work with more children. The site is more favourably located with better parking facilities allowing better access for families. Wednesday 2nd December Almost a fifth of home owners said that they would move because they are simply bored with their current property according to a new survey by Cooperative Bank Mortgages. One quarter even said that they'd had the urge to move again immediately after settling in to a new home! The main reasons for moving home, reported by most people are to get more space and to live closer to work. On average, home owners tend to feel the urge to up sticks and move on again after 7 years - the '7 year itch'! Tuesday 1st December As official sponsors of the Commercial Mover of the Year (‘CMOTY’) awards for the past couple of years, we at Teacrate are enthusiastic supporters of this prestigious event. We have recently been finalising our involvement in the 2010 competition and I am pleased to announce that Teacrate will again be supporting the proceedings through our sponsorship. A three-way joint sponsorship arrangement has been agreed for 2010 involving Teacrate, Reason Global Insurance and Wendover. Looking ahead to the forthcoming awards, it looks set to be another really competitive one, with the industry’s top performers battling it out! Wednesday 25th November Teacrate is planning a customer survey in the near future to help us keep abreast of industry trends and to ensure that the products and services we offer reflect the changing needs of the market place. Customer feedback will tell us how well we are performing and help us identify any gaps in our product and service offerings. It can also give us a helpful steer on trends or issues that may be of concern both now and into the future, for example in the area of sustainability. If you wish to share any thoughts or ideas that you might have into the process at any time, you can do so by e-mailing Teacrate’s Sales Director, Simon Johns on simonj@teacrate.com Friday 20th November PHS Datasafe, the Group’s secure document and data storage specialist has more than doubled its capacity in the 18 months since becoming a PHS company. Across its five facilities, it can now handle 2.5m cubic feet of records or 25 million individual files! This makes the company a leading contender in the marketplace for secure off site storage for boxes, files and documents, including wills, plans, certificates, medical records and HR files. Their sophisticated electronic document retrieval system allows customers access to their documents within 2 hours. They also offer media storage services including remote computer and critical data backup, as well as confidential data destruction. Read more about PHS Datasafe and its services here. Thursday 12th November
We’ve launched a great little special offer for November. There’s a very competitive price on our Archive Boxes for all those filing jobs. Stock up now - after all, what better time to be doing a bit of office de-cluttering before the festive season is upon us! There’s a chance to stock up too on Correx Sheeting if you’re running low. This stuff is brilliant for lots of site protection uses during moves and cost effective because it can be re-used. Domestic Movers - are you aware of Getamover.co.uk? It’s an online leads generation service providing requests for quotations at favourable rates. Through our partnership with Getamover.co.uk we are able to offer you 2 weeks worth of FREE qualified leads. Don’t delay, call Nicola on 07903 313396 for details.
Monday 9th November Existing customer The Whittle Group has shown further long-term commitment to Teacrate with their recent signing of an exclusive 3-year crate supply contract to support their UK wide Business Relocation Division. We are obviously delighted with these developments, and we’ll be doing everything we can to ensure that this relationship goes from strength to strength. It’s pleasing - as a service provider - to see such relationships cementing and to have the reassurance that our customers are seeing real value from the services that we provide.
Friday 30th October
The 2009 Poppy Appeal is well underway with this years campaign focusing on the Armed Forces serving in Afghanistan and their families. We're wearing our poppies here at Teacrate and we have donated some of our ex-rental crates to support the fundraising effort of the Warton & District Branch of the Royal British Legion in Lancashire. The best of luck to all involved there and I'm pleased that we have been of assistance.
Monday 26th October Welcome to the team Mani! Mani Channa has joined us recently from Avis Car Hire to take up a new position within our Telesales team. We have expanded the size of our London based team so that each of our field sales staff may be partnered by an office based ‘buddy’ – all as part of our newly re-focused Four Hats sales strategy. Mani has responsibility for sales and account management in the Scotland and North East regions working in close partnership with our man on the ground there, Dave Ewart. I hear that Mani has settled in very well. All the very best Mani, I hope you enjoy your new venture with Teacrate! Monday 19th October Teacrate – the UK’s Local Crate Rental Company continues on its tour of the UK … that’s our current advertising campaign with Removals & Storage Magazine. We will be appearing in the November edition with a profile of our Livingston Service Centre, and Centre Manager, Andy Green. Congratulations to competition winner David Strank of Stranks Removals who was awarded £50 in credit vouchers for correctly guessing that the Teacrate van was indeed heading north for Livingston. Can you spot the famous Scottish landmark in the background of the advert? Thursday 15th October I’ve been reading about de-cluttering! That’s in relation to selling a home and the idea that there’s an opportunity for domestic removers to offer a pre-sale de-cluttering service which could generate extra revenue in these harder times. We know that tidy and clutter free homes are more attractive to potential buyers and without clutter rooms can appear larger… all good selling points. With the average time taken for a property to sell being 10-12 weeks (and a lot longer in the current climate) – there’s an opportunity for removers to step in and offer an interim de-cluttering service to help clients sell their properties more quickly. This service could be charged for (in terms of container rental and storage) – or alternatively provided as an incentive for the booking of the full move once the house is sold. Interesting! Monday 12th October With Christmas getting ever closer, Teacrate has launched its Christmas campaign directly into the Food and Retail sectors. Supply chains in these sectors face big logistics challenges to move huge volumes and varieties of products to the many thousands of retail outlets in good time for the Christmas buying period. We can actively support these efforts and our Christmas campaign focuses on the benefits of ad hoc and short term crate rental from Teacrate for managing periods of peak demand for storage and transportation. Our network of 9 fully stocked depots across the UK allows us to react quickly and efficiently to demand – delivering crates wherever and whenever they are needed.
Wednesday 7th October
Following the success of last years Movers & Storers Show, Teacrate will be exhibiting again at the 2010 show at the Telford International Centre in February. With stand bookings ahead of where they were last year it looks to be another popular and well attended event. I understand that the show organisers will be launching a new website for the show in November – so look out for that. Our preparations for the show are underway and we look forward to welcoming new and existing customers to our stand. We’re considering showcasing a new product, which I can reveal more about closer to the time. Thursday 1st Oct
Swine flu .... many have had it, or know somebody who's had it, but how will it really affect our businesses? A new report published by the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development (CIPD) and the Business Continuity Institute (BCI) has warned UK businesses to prepare for staff absence rates of up to 50% - for periods of between 2 and 4 weeks this autumn and winter, as the second wave of Swine Flu is expected to hit. Providing a safe and hygienic workplace is key to preventing the spread of the infection and the PHS Group through their Direct and Washrooms divisions are actively supporting businesses in this area with their new 'No Germs' range of products.
Monday 28th September Continuing on the housing market theme, there is evidence that much of the new house buying (particularly by first time buyers) has been financed substantially by loans from parents, who have provided money for their childrens' mortgage deposits. A recent survey by property website FindaProperty.com showed that nearly half of first time buyers received financial help from their families. Lenders are typically asking for a 25% deposit prior to granting a first time loan - and with many first time buyers struggling to find this sort of cash, the Bank of Mum & Dad is increasingly helping out!
Wednesday 23rd September
The UK economy has begun to emerge from recession but growth next year will be fragile according to a forecast by the CBI. Household consumer spending will remain tight, businesses will be knuckling down and the government will be pulling its reins in. Turning to the housing market, I read that house sales fell in August from July - the first drop this year in fact. But sales in August were still double those of January and were 19% higher than August last year.
Friday 18th September I'm very pleased to report the overall positive feedback I'm getting from our new GB Nationwide customers following their acquisition earlier this year. Our teams across the business have worked very hard over the past couple of months to ensure a smooth and trouble-free transition for ex-GB customers. We are undertaking a programme of communication including personal visits by our Business Development Managers and follow-up service calls from our friendly Telesales team. As a result we are happy to see that many ex-GB cutomers are already enjoying improved crate rental services with Teacrate, re-inforced by access to a wider range of products and the additional support offered through our online tracking and ordering system 'Cratelink'.
Monday 14th September Last week the Government gave the go-ahead for the building of 2,000 new council houses across England. The project is being described as the biggest of its kind in 20 years.... as most social housing is normally built by housing associations. I suspect that the Government is doing this to help the ailing construction industry and to create jobs - as well as to help meet the country's longer term housing needs. Wednesday 9th September Each of Teacrate's market sectors - Removals, Food, Retail and Packaging have always been served by dedicated sector sales people. With the launch of our new initiative 'Operation Four Hats' all members of our sales team will now work across all four of Teacrate's markets within specified geographical territories. Our new approach has been introduced to increase service levels by maximising our use of resources within the existing team as well as to bring about more exposure in our key markets. Thursday 27th August I've been reading some positive news today on the housing market with the Nationwide reporting August as being the fourth consecutive month of house price rises. This is attributed mainly to low interest rates, and the demand for homes continuing to outweigh supply. The mortgage industry are careful to point out that this is not likely to be the start of a housing boom and the feeling here is that there could be a very bumpy road to recovery. Housebuilders are reporting improved trading conditions and are referring to a stabilisation in the housing market. Monday 24th August As England celebrate the Ashes (probably with a shorter and more civilised drinking session than last time!) we've been busy here today with our websites. The PHS Group site is currently being updated and the Marketing Department at PHS has been chasing down volunteers from across the divisions to model for the new home page which will feature staff and products. Graeme Ede, one of our Business Development Managers, took to the wicket for Teacrate, modelling in his hi-viz with a few of our popular crates. Nice one Graeme! I'm looking forward to seeing the pictures! Friday 14th August
If you are in the baking industry you may know that Teacrate works alongside Bakers Basco who manage a pool of circa 2 million bread baskets to various plant bakeries throughout the UK. The group also employs a dedicated asset recovery team in their fight to reduce the number of branded baskets and equipment that is being used illegally. A huge number of baskets are 'lost' each year costing the baking industry millions. Teacrate supports Bakers Basco in the provision of replacement baking trays and equipment where illegal equipment has been seized by Basco's recovery team. Teacrate - with their nationwide coverage, next day delivery and flexible payment options are best placed to offer a viable and cost effective replacement option.
Wednesday 12th August
I'm hearing that crates are becoming a rare commodity in some quarters. In fact, just recently, Teacrate was approached by a large commercial mover because their regular crate supplier was unable to fulfil their orders. Teacrate offers the widest range of products to the market with the widest availability throughout the UK via our network of 9 strategically located and fully stocked depots. Following our acquisition of GB Nationwide, Teacrate is now the only truly national supplier. Monday 10th August I am delighted to announce that on 31st July, Teacrate acquired GB Nationwide Crate Hire. GB Nationwide has an excellent name within the industry and was the number 2 in the market place and our major national competitor. In today’s difficult economic climate this acquisition gives Teacrate the opportunity to further develop and grow its business. Friday 7th August
Teacrate now offers an e-invoicing facility to all its customers, where invoices and account statements can be received via email rather than by post. Its really straightforward to set up - just contact Gurpreet Metharu at GurpreetM@treacrate.com, who can assist you or call our main switchboard on 020 8282 0000. Our e-invoicing option provides added convenience with email now being the main form of communication for many of us. Thursday 30th July Being in the midst of the growing season for fruit and veg right now, Teacrate is seeing a lot of interest in its food crates and trays. And with increasing pressure to use environmentally sustainable products, many suppliers are opting for Returnable Transit Packaging (RTP) over cardboard boxes as the preferred carrier for food products. There are strong cost arguements for using RTP as well. Recently a fruit supplies customer reported that the move to RTP will save the business approximately 60% in packaging costs over the next 3 years. Monday 27th July Any football fans may be interested to know that Teacrate has recently been involved in moving the FA's headquarters from Soho Square to its new purpose built home in Wembley Stadium. Teacrate supplied its longstanding customer, Relocate London with crates for the entire move.
Friday 24th July
One of our leading customers in the food processing industry - Cargill, has presented us with a recognition award for our outstanding contribution to their business and for high achievement in the areas of innovation and customer focus. This is a great accolade for Teacrate, showing the high service levels that we deliver and the commitment of our staff across the UK.
Monday 20th July A lot of people in the PHS Group have been working very hard on the WAWE environmental initiative, which stands for Water, Air, Waste and Energy. It looks like the hard work is paying off - with PHS announcing a 5% reduction in its carbon footprint. Read more about how this has been achieved on the PHS Group site.
Friday 17th July
With The Ashes first test taking place in Cardiff last week, I was really pleased to be able to entertain some of our customers at the SWALEC stadium in Cardiff.
The PHS Group are sponsoring the National Indoor Cricket Centre at the ground which meant we were able to get tickets for this great sporting event. A fantastic venue, and even if you’re not a Cricket fan it’s a great place to visit.
Our customers, Premier Movers, Morgan Cole, Comet and DTZ certainly enjoyed the event and good weather held out for us!
Friday 3rd July 2009
Good news for retail and logistics customers. Teacrate has acquired the manufacturing tool for our popular mid-sized retail tote - the LC2. This means that we can assure availability and supply to the market. It also means that we have been able to introduce a number of improvements to the design of the LC2 based on customer feedback. Click here to read more.
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