Print.IT Reseller - issue 74

Continued... INTERVIEW 01732 759725 38 Brother UK has re-opened its Manchester head office and welcomed a skeleton staff of around 25 back to work. Managing Director Phil Jones spoke to Michelle Ryder about the impact of lockdown on the business and its people, and how Brother’s label printers played a key role in transforming the workplace into a COVID-secure environment Adapting to the new normal mental health of your people; many who are dealing with grief and others who are struggling with isolation for example. So, whilst keeping business moving is a priority, you can’t just carry on as if nothing has happened. Keeping in touch with people has been critical over the past few months and considering how these events might also impact your culture when people return is key.” Providing support to the NHS and other frontline services really came to the fore during the crisis. Brother has approximately 100,000 printers installed in hospitals, GP surgeries and pharmacies and plays a key role in keeping these up and running. “That was something we couldn’t drop the ball on, it gave us all a unifying cause during the height of the crisis,” Jones said. And like other vendors, the company also saw a huge uptick in demand for home office printers from March. “Warehousing and logistics is outsourced to DHL which was awarded key site status, so we were able to ensure continuity of supply, with the logistics managed by the team from home,” he explained. “If there is a positive to take away from this, it was that the roads were clear, so getting our product from A to B was easier than normal. We were able to get stock delivered to our distribution partners and help our partners to fulfil customer orders. The demand has continued, but now with manufacturing sites only operating at around 30-40 per cent capacity, I believe we will see a shortage of all types of technology in the coming months,” he added. Opening the office After some 12 weeks running the business remotely, Brother made a concerted effort to re-open head office safely. “We asked our people if they wanted to come back to the office,” Jones explained. “Some people such as engineers who need access to a workshop for example can only really work from the office, but we recognised that some of our people were struggling to work from home for a number of reasons. We had tales of family members living together competing for quiet space in the living room, while others were juggling work with caring for their children, while others really missed being present in the office and engaging with colleagues in real life.” He continued. “There are many who were quite happy to continue working from home, and that’s what they are doing, we only have a skeleton staff of about 25 people onsite. But we wanted to offer people the opportunity to resume some sense of normality and come back to the office if that was better for them. I think perhaps the situation has had a much greater impact on younger colleagues, who are missing out on the Without a shade of doubt, the past few months has delivered an unprecedented amount of new, unique and difficult challenges for businesses everywhere. The print sector is one which has been affected more than most, the closure of offices nationwide has seen hundreds of thousands of devices lying idle, all vendors have had to react quickly to demand for technology to get home offices up and running, and supply chains have been stretched to full capacity. And yet talking to a number of business leaders, channel vendors and distributors over the past few weeks, it’s clear that once again the sector has demonstrated its resilience, its ability to pivot and respond to change – and is now all guns blazing and raring to get back to business in the new normal. From Brother’s perspective, Jones said that on top of the challenges associated with running a business remotely, there has also been a significant amount of emotional weight to bear. “A number of our people have lost loved ones and as a leader, you have to have a high degree of emotional sensitivity and be aware of the Brother has approximately 100,000 printers installed in hospitals, GP surgeries and pharmacies and plays a key role in keeping these up and running Phil Jones