MCLW is one of London's major stone wholesalers with a high turnover of material, so when the slabs stopped going out during the lockdown last year but were still arriving at the ports, the company had to hire extra storage space to put it all. The lockdown came just as the company had completed the customer relationship management (CRM) computer system it had invested in the year before. Director Rogerio Moutinho said when the system was being developed in 2019 that it was "a very, very big job for us - and very important. It will give us a lot of information about the client. It will tie it all up together, although we will still prioritise the masons - we want to win projects but we supply them through the masons." A CRM is designed to increase the efficiency of stock management, keep track of orders and deliveries, improve management resources and give the customer a quicker, more transparent service. Rogerio Moutinho and his older brother Joao are Portuguese and had been thinking about opening a warehouse in Portugal after the UK voted to leave Europe. Last year they achieved that aim, as well as moving into Spain and Italy.
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