The safety of customers and employees remains a top concern.
Curbside pickup is expected to stay long after the pandemic is over.
limited capacity. That complicated matters,” says Senese. “We certainly tried to take a more provincial approach to how and what we have to do to meet the needs of our customers right across Canada.” In addition, forecasting basically went out the window, says Yves Bélanger, vice president of supply chain at Wolseley Canada Inc. “Not knowing the future demand and having an abrupt decrease in sales, we had to change our ordering to adapt to the current reality.” After the dip in demand, there was an abrupt reintroduction of demand due largely to construction sites being reopened.
Level of transparency Communication
to just drive up and have it delivered to their vehicle as opposed to a location,” explains Rita Woodley, regional manager for the greater Toronto area at Noble. “It’s a lot faster service for them with regards to turnaround. I think curbside pickup is going to stay.” Across the country, each province has been affected by the pandemic differently, “The changes were felt mostly in the eastern part of the country, which was hardest hit by the pandemic, particularly in Quebec, and in Ontario, where construction sites were closed at the request of the provincial governments,”
says McDougall. “The implementation of safety measures and the closure of construction sites also had a drastic effect on demand during the first couple of months of the pandemic.” For those that operate businesses across Canada, this made planning a bit trickier. “Unfortunately for us, we operate national across the country, each province, on top of what the federal government was doing, put in their own control mechanisms such as with commercial construction sites, some were closed, some were open, and some had
amongst all levels of the distribution channel needed to be increased. “We thought communication was important before, it has exponentially become something that needs to be at the core of everything we do both internally and for customer and supplier contact,” says Senese. This includes communication between subsidiary companies which allowed them to share best practices. When COVID-19 first hit, in many ways, wholesalers went into survival mode, attempting to find the best way to conduct business while ensuring the safety of their employees and customers. Safety remains to be of top concern for Continued on page 8
September 2020 – Plumbing & HVAC
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