What have we been up to in 2024?
It’s been another busy year for The NX Group and as we near the end of 2024, we take a look back at some of our highlights over the last 12 months.
Q1: Beginning our 2024 NX Journey
The demand for more warehousing space we saw in 2023 has been turned on its head at the start of this year. The dramatic shift saw warehouses now less full as supply chains stabilize and inventory levels adjust to more balanced demand.
Not to be perturbed by this change in the market, at NX we powered through the challenges and continued to thrive.
We expanded our highly secure fleet with the addition of 10 additional rigid vehicles. Our dedicated fleet, with enhanced security measures, allows us to provide our secure Closed Network service, specialising in timed deliveries throughout the UK.
Our larger fleet has meant that we could increase our geographical reach and offer a next day service up to the north east, north west and Scotland three days a week using our own vehicles. In addition, we strengthened our partnership with a haulier in the south east which allowed us to add speed to our reach in that area.
January saw us welcome our first female driver to the team! Kayla-May joined us as part of our new intake of drivers and is a great ambassador flying the flag for female drivers.
In March, we celebrated International Women’s Day and our team of fabulous females shared their top tips for other women looking to get into the transport and logistics industry.
Q2: Driving NX into Spring
The logistics industry has suffered from a number of challenges in the last few years such as rising transport costs and a shortage of HGV drivers. This, along with navigating post pandemic and Brexit conditions, has seen the industry become particularly uncertain at times. A number of local and national logistics and transport businesses unfortunately succumbed to these challenges and were forced into liquidation. However, we remained adaptable to meet the requirements of our customers and continued to forge the business forward.
We strengthened our partnership with Bleckmann agreeing a new three-year contract as well as picking up new client The VPK Group, after their existing supplier ceased trading. Both of these customers have ensured our increased experience and reputation in fashion retail deliveries.
In April, we celebrated our 14th anniversary in business! There have been lots of changes over that 14 years but one thing that hasn’t changed is our passion for logistics providing quality, security and service to our customers. Alongside this, the commitment and hard work from all of our employees over the years has been invaluable in what we have achieved and the business we’ve built.
In May we scooped the first of our local business awards at the SME Northamptonshire Business Awards. The NX Group was named as the Gold winner in the Family Business of the Year category and Silver winner in the Daventry Business of the Year category.
Q3: Delivering NX’s Superb Summer Service
Through the summer months we continued to attract new customers, taking on a world leading polymer distributor to our storage and transport services. One of the world’s leading TV/Screen brands also came onboard with incredible levels of stock building at the height of the year.
In August, we once again secured our Leicester City executive box. Offering an enhanced matchday experience we have entertained a number of customers, suppliers and invited guests in our exclusive hospitality space.
Q4: Navigating the Peak Festive Season
In November, we took part in Brake’s Road Safety Week and shared our commitment to making the roads a safer place for our drivers and the community.
Quarter 4 has once again been an extremely busy period as customers prepared for Black Friday and the festive rush. With many of our pallets being delivered to retailers on behalf of our various clients, a second rush was felt during the lead up to the 29th of November significantly increasing the workload across the entire team. Additionally, the number of clients we provide e-commerce services to has increased, which brings a whole new set of dynamic challenges in itself. However, our team of experienced e-commerce processors were fully prepared to ensure we were able to fulfil the demand.
Keeping up to date with technology and security measures across our facilities and fleet ensures we’re well-prepared for the additional demand around the festive period and these spikes of activity.
Towards the end of the year we began a working partnership with Freightnordic who are based in our Daventry HQ. They have extensive Nordic connections and the largest independent distribution network offering unrivalled coverage of Scandinavia. We look forward to developing our relationship with them and uncovering the value they can add to NX with their services and the additional scope it could offer. There will be more on this to come in 2025!
In October, our driver Simon Hunter was announced as HGV Driver of the Year at the Northamptonshire Logistics Awards. The following month we received our fourth industry and business award after being named Business of the Year at the Northamptonshire Business Excellence Awards.
Commenting on our award wins our managing director, Neil Powell said: “Winning these local business and industry awards is more than just an honour for us; it reflects our commitment to excellence and our connection to the communities and industries we serve. These accolades are a testament to our dedicated and hardworking team as well as validating the trust of our customers, and the innovative solutions we provide to meet the challenges of the transport and warehousing sectors.”
We’re finishing off the year with a Christmas party at The Mercure Daventry Court Hotel where everyone will get the chance to relax and enjoy some festive merriment!
Our Greatest Asset: The NX Team
We have welcomed several new employees to the NX team throughout the year. Our continued commitment to the ongoing support and development of our employees’ careers has seen many of our team taking on and completing various training and development courses. These include:
• Eddie Johnson, Jakub Gajewski, Ludmila Ghiletchi, Daniela Birneata, Sergiu Neculai, Wayne Clayton, Sam Patch and Jaydn Chattaway who completed their one-day PPT refresher courses
• Jakub Gajewski and Daniel Tatarcan who both completed their First Aid and Fire Marshall training courses
• Jakub Gajewski and Andrei Iacobet who completed their FLT training course
• Sam Patch, Jaydn Chattaway and Yann Boloux who completed their FLT/Counterbalance training course
• Jakub Gajewski, Tom Cerek and Jaydn Chattaway who completed their Bendi training course
• Emilia Szubartowska who completed her Leadership and Management and Effective Leadership courses
• Jakub Gajewski, Veronica Vornicescu, Marta Cerek, Silvia Crecea and Emilia Szubartowska completed a course on Understanding Drivers Hours & The Working Time Directive
Congratulations to all of those who have undertaken training courses and well done for your hard work!
Gearing Up for 2025
Thank you to all our customers and those who have supported us throughout 2024. We look forward to what 2025 has to offer and both continuing to work with our existing customers as well as welcoming new customers to deliver secure logistics solutions that meets their needs.
If you would like to find out more about the services The NX Group offer, please email us or give the team a call on 01604 217855.
