Worldwide Chain Stores Ltd

About Worldwide Chain Stores Ltd

For over 40 years, WCS has provided global customers with innovative retail and supply chain solutions, ranging from warehousing, yard management and mobility solutions to merchandise management, buying, and in-store systems.

Their flagship product, CSnx, is a next-generation supply chain management platform that is flexible, scalable, and easy-to-use, while providing the capability to automate, diagnose, and seamlessly manage the supply chain from the procurement of inventory through to the management of the warehouse. For the past five years, Joshila Makan has been CEO of WCS.

The innovation

The company’s journey with Myriad Associates started when Joshila saw information on LinkedIn about a government grant for innovation in technology, which had been posted by Myriad. After further investigation of the grant and Myriad, Joshila determined that, while it was not the right time to apply for the grant, the CSnx project would likely qualify for R&D tax relief. She contacted Myriad Associates to see if the project would meet HMRC’s criteria.

When asked about the challenges of applying for R&D tax relief before contacting Myriad, Joshila said that WCS wasn’t even aware that it qualified “Myriad was the first to give me a full education on R&D tax relief; before that, I wasn’t even aware this tax relief was available. Myriad was very good at guiding me and helping me understand what criteria we would need to meet. After calling Myriad to briefly discuss the project, they sat down with us and we told them what we’d built and explained how innovative our project was and that it was uniquely positioned in the industry, but with a lot of today’s technology built into the architecture.”

How we helped

“The Myriad team were very quick; as they do this all the time, they knew exactly how to pull our claim together...”

Joshila continued, “During the meeting, it became apparent that the Myriad team were really aware of the technological areas I was speaking of. From the financial side to the tech, they had the skill to understand what we had built. They helped us understand the eligible costs and did the final paperwork. Without Myriad, I wouldn’t have even known about R&D tax, and I sure didn’t have had the background to pull together the claim. They were a great team, and very quick; as they do this all the time, they knew exactly how to pull our claim together.”

The reward

“We didn’t know how to prepare the claim to ensure that it would meet HMRC’s criteria. Myriad knew exactly what to do.”

Joshila didn’t hesitate to point out Myriad’s speed and expertise when handling the WCS claim. “As a business, we didn’t know how to prepare the claim to ensure that it would meet HMRC’s criteria. Myriad knew exactly what to do. They knew exactly what data they needed to pull. They made our lives a lot easier by pulling it together. If we had to do it, I think it would have taken us a lot longer and we wouldn’t have had such a quick turnaround. When I started this journey, I knew nothing about R&D tax relief; by the end, we were able to inject the relief money back into proactive development – which is fantastic.“

We asked Joshila what advice she would give to businesses who are unsure whether they qualify for R&D tax relief. “I think if you’ve done your research and you’ve developed something that’s innovative and that you can justify as innovation and you can prove the effort, skill, and investment you have put in, you should definitely try. From our side, the effort that we put in led to a successful claim and it wasn’t that difficult to do. Myriad knew exactly what information they needed, so it made the process much easier to pull our claim together.”

“I would definitely recommend Myriad Associates because they’re excellent at what they do. I would also encourage other businesses to educate themselves on Myriad’s R&D tax relief services, number one, but also to look into the other services and benefits they offer.“