Phones ring off the hook at cut-off
Orders arrive by phone, WhatsApp and text at once. Mistakes slip through and customers wait.
Back-office partner for UK foodservice wholesalers
Your back office, run by people who've done it.
We take on order taking, customer service, credit control and reporting for independent wholesalers and cash & carries, so you can grow without growing overheads. Start with one function and a free review.
- UK hours, 7 days a week
- Works inside your systems
- 30-day exit on every pilot
98%order accuracy
28→14debtor days, halved
97%of calls answered
~⅓of the like-for-like UK cost
Results our founders delivered running the back office of a UK foodservice wholesaler, 2018 to today.
Sound familiar?
The back office is where good wholesalers quietly lose money.
Wage rises, higher employer NI and staff who are hard to replace have made every desk role dearer. Most owners feel it in four places.
Debtors creep past 30 days
Nobody has time to chase, so cash sits in customers' accounts instead of yours.
Every hire costs more
Recruiting, training and covering holidays for office roles eats into thin margins.
No clear view of margin
You know sales, but not which customers, routes and lines actually make money.
What we run for you
Four desks your business already needs. One partner to run them.
Order-to-cash & customer service
Phone, WhatsApp and online order taking, order entry, queries, complaints and returns, handled the way your customers expect.
ExploreSales growth desk
Telesales, lapsed-account reactivation, online-ordering conversion and new-account lead generation.
ExploreCredit control & finance
Account openings, credit checks, polite and persistent collections, bookkeeping and management reports.
ExploreLogistics & supply support
Route-planning admin, delivery exceptions, purchase orders, supplier follow-up and stock queries.
ExploreData & Power BI under everything. Every desk we run comes with clear weekly KPIs and dashboards for sales, margin, debtors and service.
See reportingHow it works
Start small. Prove it. Then scale.
You never commit to more than you've seen work. Each step ends with results you sign off before the next one starts.
-
01
Back-Office Health Check
Two weeks, fixed fee. We map your order, service, credit and reporting processes, cost them, and hand you three quick wins plus a starter Power BI dashboard.
Fee credited if you go ahead -
02
Pilot one function
Ninety days, usually the order desk or credit control. A dedicated team works in your systems, on UK hours, with a weekly KPI report.
30-day exit clause -
03
Scale at your pace
Add customer service, sales, logistics support, finance or BI one desk at a time, with a named team lead who knows your business.
Grows with you
2018 → today5 people → 75+ across 11 functions
Our track record
We built this once, from a phone line to a full back office.
Our founders started with five people taking phone orders for about 30 customers of a UK foodservice wholesaler. Eight years later that back office runs eleven functions for a business turning over more than £70m.
- 1,500customers served a week, up from 30
- +1,100new customers won through lead generation and online ordering
- 14.5% → 19%gross margin for the business we supported
- +20%revenue from existing customer accounts
Who we work with
Built for independents who trade on service.
We know the takeaway, ethnic and catering trade: the product names customers really use, the late order calls, the cash & carry rush. That's the world our team has worked in every day.
- Delivered foodservice wholesalers
- Cash & carries
- Takeaway & ethnic specialists
- Fish & chips and frozen suppliers
- Chinese & Turkish trade
- Dessert & café suppliers
- Catering butchers
- Institutional catering suppliers
Why SMD Networks
Not another call centre. Wholesale operators.
| Hiring in the UK | Generic outsourcer | SMD Networks | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Knows foodservice wholesale | Depends on the hire | Rarely | 8 years running it |
| Cost per desk | Wage + 15% NI + pension + holiday | Lower, often with long contracts | About a third of UK cost |
| Time to start | Weeks to recruit and train | Long onboarding | Pilot live in weeks |
| Commitment | Employment contracts | 12 to 36 months | 30-day exit on pilots |
| Reporting | Whatever you build | Call stats | Weekly KPIs and Power BI |
Who you'll work with
Three founders who ran it, not just advised on it.
Chief Executive Officer
Sales leader who helped grow the customer base from 30 to 1,500 a week. Leads commercial strategy, sales operations and client relationships.
Chief Operating Officer
16+ years across telecoms, BPO and FMCG. ACCA-grounded, Six Sigma process improvement, contact-centre SOPs and quality assurance.
Chief Technology Officer
Data and systems lead: ERP, SQL and Power BI. Turns order, sales and debtor data into daily decisions for owners.
Questions owners ask
Straight answers.
Where is your team based?
Our delivery centre is in Islamabad, Pakistan, and works UK hours, 9am to 6pm, seven days a week. It's the same model our founders used to run a UK wholesaler's back office for eight years: experienced, English-speaking teams at around a third of the UK cost. You're welcome to meet the people who would work on your account on a video call.
Will my customers notice a difference?
Only in faster answers and fewer mistakes. Our team answers in your business name, follows your scripts and price rules, and is trained on your range, including the local product names your customers actually use.
How do you keep our data safe?
We work inside your systems with named user accounts, sign a data processing agreement and NDA before any access, follow UK GDPR, and you can remove access at any time.
What does the Health Check cost?
It's a small fixed fee agreed up front, with no surprises. If you go ahead with a pilot, the fee is credited against it. The first 30-minute review call is free.
What systems can you work with?
Whatever you already use: your ERP or order system, CRM, cloud telephony, WhatsApp Business, Xero, Sage or QuickBooks. We've worked with custom-built ERPs, Zoho CRM, cloud phone systems and Power BI every day.
How quickly can we start, and how do we stop?
A Health Check can start within a week of your call. A pilot usually goes live within a few weeks of agreeing scope. Every pilot has a 30-day exit clause, so you're never locked in.
Find out what your back office really costs.
Book a free 30-minute review. No obligation, no hard sell - just a clear view of where time and money are going.