We continue to do everything we can to ensure that the risk of coronavirus is closely monitored and carefully managed.
As with many businesses, our work on this started in March. You can read more about how we managed our business through the first wave here.
As restrictions become tighter across Europe, with many markets re-entering lockdown, our top priorities are still:
- Reduce the risk of infection for our colleagues and the people we do business with.
- Stay open for business and continue to provide specialist advice and technical expertise to our customers.
- Secure availability with our suppliers.
Protecting our colleagues and the people we do business with
The situation is changing regularly and the advice from governments and health services varies from market to market. We are asking all colleagues to follow the relevant advice, supported by clear direction and support from our local leadership teams.
Rubix keeps factories and plants across Europe up and running. To do that, we are working closely with our customers and conforming to any additional measures they have put in place whenever we are working on their sites.
We are maintaining the same hygiene standards in our business that have kept all distribution centres, engineering centres and branches open this year. Where possible and appropriate, our colleagues are working from home.
Keeping the wheels of industry turning, right across Europe
We remain open for business, supporting customers from small, local businesses to the biggest names in European manufacturing. We are working with them to identify their most critical products and agreeing solutions to secure supply.
Our distribution centres, branches and engineering centres have been operational throughout the year. With orders fulfilled on time and in full, vending machines replenished on schedule and InsiteTM teams working side-by-side with our customers, we have delivered a consistent and continuous service throughout the pandemic.
To maintain access to our experts, the additional resource committed to digital channels during the first wave remains in place today. Where we can’t be with customers in person, web chat enables them to access our team of specialists. Online quotations make the online buying process fast and simple and the account manager log-in feature enables us to guide customers through their online transactions.
Protecting the supply of products and services
As Europe’s largest distributor of industrial products and services we are the largest European customer for many of our suppliers. That means we can secure supply in a way that many other distributors cannot.
This enabled us to keep our existing customers moving in the early months of COVID-19, and to support a lot of new ones too.
We have continued to work closely with our suppliers in anticipation of the latest developments. Our customers will benefit from those relationships throughout the pandemic, and into the future.
PPE has been a major theme of the crisis so far and we continue to see demand exceed available supply. We anticipate continued shortages in gloves and potentially other items such as masks and coveralls.
We offer a wide range of PPE from our exclusive brand, GISS, including products that are essential for reducing the risk of infection. With that exclusivity comes additional confidence in the continuity of supply.
More broadly, we will continue to use our market leading position to help manage the risk of price increases and to build stock in each country.