Andy Hawker, Head of Logistics, Laithwaites Wine shares his expectations for 2022
This year has followed in the same vein as 2020 with our home delivery at the forefront aligning itself to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns this past year. A fortunate position to be in, where we have had to go above and beyond across the entire business in order to keep the wine flowing for our loyal customers.
Coronavirus has been with us the entire year and like many businesses all our teams except for the warehouse to have been working from home during that time. Mobilising over 200 call centre staff to work from home is a huge achievement, with a five star Trustpilot score and a finalist in the Institute of Customer Service Awards once again.
Our strategy to fill the warehouse to the brim with wine ahead of Brexit proved the right strategy allowing us to manage the new import procedures and paperwork on a much smaller scale. Import declarations for our Northern Ireland customer base has been a concern with the new processes, however this import element has remained on hold, and we hope the initial planned process of sending parcels containing excise goods to NI will ease.
Recognising our people this past year has never been more important across many ways, including internal awards for Outstanding Customer Service from our call centre and delivering innovation from our warehouse team implementing new automation in our busiest year. We are now certified as a Great Place to Work, and kicked off our first venture into sponsorship of GRFC and a chance to get the Laithwaites name on the famous Cherry and White shirt.
So, what does the next year look like…? It’s hard to say and equally hard to predict or budget for while in a pandemic, but we have a larger customer base and a warehouse full of wine that will put us in a good position ahead of the Christmas period.
It’s not been easy filling the warehouse ahead of Christmas with the global supply chain a constant challenge. This has only got worse these past couple of months affecting all countries across a wide range of issues including shortage of containers, space on ships, drivers, pallets and even corks! This is unlikely to ease anytime soon and are planning for continued disruption well into the New Year!
We need to double our staffing for the call centre and warehouse team ahead of peak Christmas trading, and recruitment has also been the most challenging at a time when job vacancies are far greater than staff availability. We have been paying the Real Living Wage since July and continue to recruit locally as well as supporting the Kickstart Apprenticeship Scheme along with other local initiatives. But like the supply chain challenges above, this will be a hard slog the next few months.
So ahead of a busy Christmas period it’s better to get your wine orders in soon…it’s better to order just in case rather than just in time!
