British parcels carrier APC Overnight increased its revenues for the year ended March 2016 by 3.6% to £102.4m but profits dropped “slightly” to £2.3m due to “spending on its facilities and on re-organising parts of the business”.
To handle the growing number of parcels, the Staffordshire firm has re-opened its former base in Essington, near Wolverhampton in central England. APC moved its headquarters from its site in Essington to a new national hub at Lakeside, in Cannock, in July 2013. However, responding to its business growth, APC re-opened the 5574,2 sqm Essington hub in November last year with a team of 130 staff.
To make its hub operations more efficient and to increase capacity, APC restructured both the Cannock and Essington sites to run as a dual hub operation. “There was a restructure of management with sector experience brought into the business in hub operations, line haul, network support, IT and business development,” the company said in a statement.
APC Overnight CEO Jonathan Smith said: “The financial year ending March 2016 has been strong, particularly during the latter half with robust profit growth in Q3 and Q4. We have invested heavily in our infrastructure, service enhancements and IT strategy over the past 12 months.”
“We continue to invest in expanding our exceptional team, allowing us to deliver on our key working principle; outstanding customer service. This is reflected in local recruitment, hires at our head office and the delivery of a dedicated training academy for our employees. The focus of our internal investment strategy has been to spend in areas that directly benefit both our network of depots and SME customers,” he added.
In the end of year accounts, APC’s directors said: “It was an important year with the business being re-shaped across key areas to ensure that a solid foundation was in place for continued future success.”
This year, APC is looking to expand services for customers while continuing to improve its IT system.
The company employs nearly 500 people collecting, sorting and distributing parcels from its hubs in Staffordshire to member companies across its UK-wide network through 115 local depots.
