Wilkinson
Wilkinson opened its first shop in 1930 and since then has remained a family owned business. It provides around 25,000 high quality affordable products offering a wide range of every day essentials and home decoration items.

Today Wilkinson has 300 stores visited by more than four million customers every week across England and Wales.

In Wilkinson's last financial year their reported sales figure was £1.45 Billion. This enabled the company to donate more than £350,000 to charitable causes, which does not include the phenomenal amount raised by team members for the charity of the year.

Wilkinson / Orridge History
At the time of the initial meeting with Wilkinson in 1997 they were keen to explore ways to improve their internal stock taking checks.
The initial meetings involved introducing our services, discussing processes and cost structures.

Orridge started carrying out trials in July / August 1997 with a full programme being put in place by February 1998. Orridge started off by using its own equipment but then adapted to Wilkinson's needs by using their equipment in 2000.
Orridge now count Wilkinson's full estate twice a year running from January through to the end of October with three core teams, North, South & West.

1. Why did Wilkinson change from conducting their stock takes internally to outsourcing externally?

Ian Cutts, Finance Manager at Wilkinson, said:

"We needed a process of counting our stock to item level for replenishment purposes, previous stocktakes had been value only. I was given the project of determining the best way of doing this, initially we had our own staff counting and a number of independent stocktakers. It was decided that an independent audit was required that could deliver the necessary accuracy and a suite of after count reports to measure store performance and plan corrective action"

2. What was Wilkinson looking for from a stocktaking supplier?

• Reliability
• Flexibility
• Accuracy
• A long term productive partnership

3. Did you look at any other stocktaking suppliers prior to choosing Orridge?
Yes

4. What were the reasons for choosing Orridge against the competition?

• Cost
• People

5. What do you think are the three main benefits for outsourcing?

• Independence
• Flexibility
• It allows us to focus on the issues identified as opposed to the physical count.

6. Is Orridge now the preferred supplier for Wilkinson?
Yes. A partnership has developed over many years that has built a level of trust between both companies. There is consistently a quality service provided through the partnership between Orridge and the Wilkinson Finance team.

7. What aspects of Orridge and the services which we supply do you find most useful and why?
Consistent team management and staffing with minimal disruption to stores whilst delivering the information we need.

8. What reasons do you use stocktakes?
Stock replenishment, store performance appraisal and planned courses of action to reduce costs from both a shrinkage and stock management viewpoint.

9. What do your managers think of not having to count stock?
We receive feedback forms from every store when they have a stocktake, over 99% are very happy with the service they receive from a count viewpoint and also the condition that the store is left after the count.
Store Managers not needing to provide count staff lets them focus on what they are meant to be doing - selling stock and serving customers.

10. What do your managers think of Orridge?
Very happy with the service they receive.

12. In the past you made the following quote:
"We have worked with Orridge to deliver a bespoke stocktaking system that has helped to control costs and assisted in increasing sales"

Is it a proven fact that by using Orridge, we have enabled Wilkinson to increase sales?
Yes it is proven, our stockfiles are a certain percentage accurate when Orridge perform a count, immediately after the count the stockfile is corrected and deliveries adjusted to reflect the stock required. Some of the inaccuracy will have caused out of stocks which we can see coming back into stock after the count, we can also see sales then occurring against these items. Also the items we were overstocked on do not get delivered and stockholding of these lines is reduced.