United Wholesale Grocers (UWG) has expanded into England for the first time with the opening of a depot in Gateshead, and has installed STL’s solutions across its cash & carry and delivered wholesale businesses to help it contain costs, optimise efficiency and maximise profits.
From humble beginnings with one door-to-door salesman, UWG has become a £140 million business with 180 employees and is one of the UK’s largest independent businesses.
Throughout its journey from retail into wholesale, then into new territories, new products and services, it has stood by the mantra that great service is paramount, and gained the market edge by constantly striving to use the best-practice business processes to achieve this.
With expansion into its second depot, in Polmadie, it chose STL’s merchandise management (STL MMS) and sales order processing (STL SOP) systems to automate its wholesale processes. Delighted with the efficiencies it gained, it soon added STL’s wrist-worn RF picking, and tilling and central cash solutions.
UWG credits its end-to-end STL solution with helping it to manage orders, stock and deliveries efficiently, while minimising paperwork. Now, in Gateshead, UWG expects the solution to help it run a similarly tight ship.
Amaan Ramzan, Managing Director of UWG, said, ‘We bought STL some years ago with our long-term expansion plans in mind. We have worked hard to achieve a reputation of being easy to do business with and running a very reliable operation. The robustness of STL’s solutions has helped us in that.
‘Now, as we move into a new territory, we need to support new tills, product lines and staff as effortlessly as possible. Our STL platform has proven to have the scalability and flexibility to do just that. As we reach this next milestone in UWG’s history, it’s been great to know that our IT systems are something we can rely on.’