Viking ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
loyalty and receiving valuable feedback on our products , recreating fanatical customer service that Viking has been famous for in the 90s . We have actually recently completed our third project which involved building a floor in our head office that is dedicated to showcasing our wide range of products . This has allowed our customers to see and feel our products in person to evaluate whether they are ergonomic enough and suit their needs before purchasing them . Lastly , following up on our previous owner ’ s decision to close our Irish distribution center in 2020 , we have now decided to re-enter the Irish market , a project led by Logistics Director Andy Renshaw . Back then we were able to ship our products from our Leicester distribution center into Ireland , but Brexit has since made this much more difficult . RAJA has empowered us to work with a third-party provider to put our products in their warehouse . Viking will be able to sell its products in Ireland from that warehouse using its final mile distribution partner by the end of this year ,” he elaborates .
Being acquired by RAJA represents a significant milestone in the company ’ s history . RAJA plays an important role in the office supplies and furniture market , strengthening Viking ’ s position . Simon details the challenges Viking has faced in terms of supply chain ever since the acquisition : “ All the managing directors of the RAJA Group come together three times a year to learn from one another . They discuss growth not only in terms of sales but also strengthening our relationship with our vendors . The supply chain is the epicenter of our operations and obviously , we have had to navigate many challenges caused by shortages in material and labor in the past few years . This year , the main challenge has been caused by the war in Ukraine since a lot of our vendors relied on energy provided via Russia . Following the events in Ukraine , we made the decision not to trade with Russia , which resulted in a shortage of paper based supplies . Previous to the war , there is also the backlog caused by the pandemic which we needed to address . The consistent backlog of
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