Gist Limited was named as the winner of the Transport Initiative of the Year award at the annual Retail Week Supply Chain Awards in London on 25th September. Gist was listed amongst five finalists; in partnership with their customer Starbucks, whose success story was the focus of their entry for the award.

Gist and Starbucks have created a supply chain transformation that places the Starbucks customer experience firmly at its centre. This transformation took place in order to address a series of limitations presented by the existing supply chain. These limitations included: 

• Stores needing to receive multiple deliveries every day from multiple suppliers
• These multiple deliveries being made during the daytime in store opening hours. Each delivery would take focus of the baristas away from delivering excellent customer service the inefficiencies of daytime deliveries in congested urban environments
• Managing the promotions and demand variability of a large bespoke range of products

To address these challenges, Gist redefined the supply chain for Starbucks, challenging each of the historical processes and assumptions to put the customer at the heart of the supply chain.

The Starbucks retail network now benefits from a supply chain transformation that has delivered efficiency, cost effectiveness but, above all, an enhanced customer experience.

Members of the team from both Gist and Starbucks attended the awards evening at the Hilton Park Lane in London.

Gist’s Chief Executive, Martin Gwynn commented – “We are delighted to have received the Transport Initiative of the Year Award, a lot of hard work and commitment has gone into creating this bespoke solution and it is really exciting to be recognised by the judges as the best at what we do.”