The Very Group is the UK’s largest integrated digital retailer and financial services provider. It offers 1,900 brands to its four million customers globally. Due to the company’s growth, they built a new state-of-the-art fulfillment centre, close to one million square feet in size, in order to centralise operations and drive efficiency.
The Very Group has historically operated from three fulfillment centres, located in the north of England. Due to their business’ growth, they needed a new, purpose-built and automated facility, in a central, well-connected location, which could accommodate all one-man fulfillment and returns operations on one site, and that provided room for continued expansion.
The space offered by the new site in the East Midlands region meant that The Very Group can process more orders and use new technology to make the business more responsive, reducing the time it takes to get products to customers.
The site’s position in the East Midlands, adjacent to the M1 and East Midlands Airport, with its own rail freight terminal, will enable the business to increase its cut-off time for next day delivery to midnight from 7 pm, and explore the introduction of same day delivery in the future.
A crucial aspect of the new hub was security – with the need to not only secure the site and the stock inside, but implement solutions which would benefit the wider business too.
The Very Group required a platform that could unite operations and provide the business-wide value that the company was seeking. They approached Grantfen, initially on a consultancy basis, to guide the organisation on the route that it should be taking and the technologies that could support its ambition.
Grantfen quickly recognised the scope of The Very Group’s ambitions for a platform that was easy-to-use and that could bring together information from hundreds of different sensors and technologies. It put forward a comprehensive solution, built on the Genetec Security Center unified platform.
Incorporating video surveillance and analytics, access control, automatic number plate recognition and integration with other key business systems, this allowed The Very Group to deploy state-of-the-art technologies from a range of vendors, including HID Global, Axis Communications and Senstar.
Perhaps the most important solution needed was tracking who was coming in and out of the building, with such a large workforce, combined with inbound and outbound deliveries, the facility has hundreds of people inside at any one time. Previously, security manually searched people selected at random.
However, thanks to the robust Genetec software development kit and Grantfen’s specialist development expertise, The Very Group has been able to adapt the solution and write its own code, in order to use the access control system to implement truly random searches.
This has involved getting permission to hold employee data, but again, thanks to the new system brought together by Genetec Security Center, the data is housed safely.
Moving from three fulfillment centres into one, consolidated facility meant a change in operations for The Very Group, and security needed to mirror this evolution. Therefore, with the volume of traffic coming in and out of the site increasing, The Very Group implemented automatic number plate recognition (ANPR).
Heavy goods vehicles could be monitored coming in and out of the site, enabling those in the diary to enter and exit the grounds in an efficient manner. Plus, with timestamps now able to show when vehicles entered or exited the grounds, it helped with yard management and traffic flow, with Security Center able to generate reports on how traffic is moving around the yard.
Employees are able to take advantage of this system as well, with the ANPR technology recognising them and seamlessly letting them into the car park. This enhanced integration has benefitted other areas of the business too. The CCTV control room is now able to monitor people and freight flow, looking at movements, such as trailers, in order to help maximise efficiencies and ensure high health and safety standards.
Dean Cooper, Head of Security at The Very Group, commented “The opening of Skygate, our new fulfillment centre, means a new era for the group. We are a digitally-led business, and the fact that we are now able to enhance operations and yield more value from security functions, is going to help us operationally. Genetec and Grantfen have played a huge part in accelerating our sophistication in this area and I look forward to how we can gain increasing insights from all that the technology has to offer.”
While the roll-out has been relatively recent, the positive effects are already being felt across the business. This has led to future plans about what else could be introduced, all underpinned by Genetec Security Center.
“Genetec Security Center is helping to improve interdepartmental collaboration, thanks to its reporting functions, alongside benefiting operations and ensuring the security of the facility. We are an ambitious business, and as we grow, we need a system that will continue to evolve with our requirements. Genetec enables this, and alongside its deep integration and leading analytics, we look forward to continuing the partnership over years to come”, concluded Dean Cooper.
