Gabriel Eytan
Global Head of Supply Chain at T2 Tea
What does your role involve?
I'm Head of Supply Chain at T2. My role entails the entire product journey, all the way from supplier to customer, whoever they are wherever they live. We source from 30 countries, and have operations in three countries: Australia, New Zealand and Singapore.
We've got a variety of routes-to-customers. We sell through our bricks-and-mortar stores that people are familiar with in this part of the world. Then we've got an online presence, and we also have a wholesale trade that is broken down between out-of-home channels, grocery, and resellers of all descriptions.
Then of course we have a marketplace presence. My job is to get all of this product sourced, and then distribute it to whoever the customer might be.
How did you come to be in supply chain?
I have an engineering background, and engineering is about finding solutions. This is a really good way into supply chain because supply chain is also about problem solving. I'm yet to see a supply chain that does not have problems.
After taking a degree in engineering I worked in advisory for four years, and this allowed me to see different problems and different solutions across different industries.
Biggest challenge of your current role?
There are plenty – every single day is a challenge. But I think the biggest is the lead time. Tea is an agricultural product so it’s contingent on climate. Last year, we had the heatwave in China, which impacted some of the products we source from there that we use in our blends.
Then of course you have war in different parts of the world – such as Ukraine, Somalia, and now we have the shipping crisis in the Red Sea this year. All of this makes for very long lead times, and affects our reactivity to our markets.
Most rewarding aspect of your role?
My role is all about customer satisfaction. Whether that customer is the store, a supermarket chain, or a consumer who is buying one of our products online, it's about leaving the customer happy, so that they come back to us repeatedly.
When a corporate customer tells us we’ve done really good work, by improving our service, for example, then that is a great reward. My enjoyment is not about what the products look like, although they do look great, but rather it is about having it there ready for people to buy.
Best advice ever received?
‘Done’ is better than ‘perfect’. I have been told this by a number of people – including my wife and also one of my previous leaders, who told me to spend less time over-engineer things and more time on making sure it gets done.
When you think about all the instability we have today, this advice is more valid than ever. Just make sure it gets done. Degrees of ‘good’ don’t really matter.
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