We are still at capacity and continue turning down new business opportunities. Our focus this year is Living Wage and existing customers. The only exception is that we will grow to support existing customers if required.

In Sept 2008 the recession hit SCS, we had 17000 pallets under management and were just hitting break-even as we moved into our new Timberly facility. Then the recession slapped us. Our storage capacity dropped to around 12000 pallets and while we didn’t loose one client, existing clients started nailing back their inventories to get the cash out to weather the storm. Good for them … us not so much.

Luckily, whilst the recession was bad we had our largest growth ever and bought on 7000 pallets over the next 12 months. Last year we could have done the same but large growth in 3PL is painful so we continue to elect to stage it at a manageable pace.  There is a sense that with the economy improving, some clients will be expanding their inventories again and we are seeing this already with some of our clients. If you are one of them can you please drop me a line so we can factor that into our plans.  Even if you only see your inventories increasing 20-50 pallets year on year it would be very helpful to know, across 110 clients it can add up quickly.