Interview with Benjamin Puncher, CEO at Digital Supply Chain Management Company: CORE

Benjamin Puncher

Fundamentally, CORE (UK) Ltd provides supply chain management software solutions to an extensive list of organisations, many of which are retailers, across a range of industries. We count many large retailers such as Primark, M&S and Argos amongst our longstanding clients. We support our customers in digitising their supply chain, bringing greater data visibility and efficiency, all of which helps executives make informed business decisions that allow them to grow and advance their organisation.

I founded CORE in 1995 with my business partner and we have grown our technology offer and our team to now export to over 200 countries including China, US and Germany. Fundamentally, innovation is at the heart of everything we do and the technology solutions we’ve developed, provide the solution to the challenges facing supply chains today. More crucial now than ever with the unforeseen challenges the pandemic and Brexit have had on supply chain processes with border closures and changes in production at source, for example.

Our leading products include Suppliview™, a leading supply chain information management and visibility system, TariffTel™, a high volume customs classification management systems and Leaf™, a platform to support retail organisations in their pursuit of sustainable trading. Ultimately, CORE’s software can help a business transform their supply chain and support them in becoming a synchronised organisation with a single view of data, with greater visibility and efficiency.

Over the last few years we’ve made it our mission to expand internationally and take our technology into new markets. We have actually just won the Queen’s Award for Enterprise for International Trade for outstanding short-term growth in overseas sales over the last three years. We were honoured to have our commitment to transforming supply chains through digitisation recognised with such a prestigious business award.
 
 
Core (UK) Ltd – Driving Healthy & Sustainable Supply Chains - Green Business Bureau
 

How did you come up with the idea for the company?

 
I studied mechanical engineering at City, University of London and always knew from my undergraduate days onwards that I wanted to start my own business.
From humble beginnings, my business partner and I started off as a business working on Point-Of-Sale and warehouse software for retail shops, when we were given an opportunity to pitch one of the industry’s first purchase order visibility products to a global logistics company called MSAS, for use by their customers.

We were successful and the first of their client implementations was Courtaulds Textiles, with installations in Sri Lanka – a major British supplier to M&S. We’ve now grown to a team of over 30 employees, with headquarters in London and offices in Hungary, South Africa and Japan.

Continued product development and the creation of new products was achieved by solving our customers problems and by working with supply chain, retail and logistics pioneers along a journey that has seen over 60 global brands benefit from our solutions. Building a team of talented British software developers and engineers was key in realising these leading technology solutions.

I’m grateful we have such a talented and committed team and that we’ve continued to grow year on year with our customers’ support – it has been a collaborative partnership with many of them as we’ve grown together and thrived, even in the difficult economic times of recent years.
 

 

How has the company evolved during the global COVID pandemic?

 
The past 12 months have been a challenge for every business. Innovation is at the heart of everything we do and has been crucial this past year more than ever as we supported our customers in navigating the unforeseen supply chain challenges that came to light as a result of the pandemic. Like many businesses, we put our customers first, helping them work smarter and more efficiently with our innovative software solutions.

The pandemic has shown that it is better to prepare for a crisis rather than to react once it has arrived. Having a single view of key supply chain data to hand allows an organisation to adapt, predict and react effectively. Digital transformation of supply chains overcomes problems associated with manual processes and departmental data silos, helping to reduce human error and unnecessary costs. Issues with purchase-order reconciliation, poor visibility and customs compliance can be resolved. Ultimately, processes are automated and decision-making is transformed. This has been invaluable for our customers.

We’ve continued to invest in our business throughout the pandemic, increasing headcount to better service our customers, as well as to maintain our strong growth and seek out further opportunities. We remain an entrepreneurial, agile business with our long term vision clearly in sight: to support more businesses in their transformative approach to digitising their supply chain.
 

What can we hope to see from CORE (UK) Ltd in the future?

 
We have grown significantly in recent years and our reputation for exceptional delivery to our clients will remain a core focus for us now and in the future. We’re here to help more businesses achieve their objective of becoming synchronised organisations with a single view of data and do to this we see further expansion for CORE as we expand our relationships with customers in the US, Asia and throughout Europe.

Put simply, our platforms can help businesses gain competitive advantage and be more cost effective and it’s our goal to tell more people about the benefits of a digital supply chain and how we can support them.