T2 Tea January 2020

Digitally transforming

the customer experience at T2 Tea

02

Digitally transforming the customer experience at T2 Tea

w w w.t 2 tea . com

03

T2 TEA

T2 Tea’s Global Head of Technology details the digital initiatives underway at the tea retailer pioneering new methods of customer engagement

T2

Tea is one of the world’s premium tea companies, operating in tea retail, wholesale and tea wares. Started in Melbourne

in 1995, in 2013 the company was purchased by 04

consumer goods giant Unilever. T2 nevertheless retains its Melburnian identity, while expanding in international markets, particularly the UK. Rohan Penman is the company’s Global Head of Technology, overseeing a systematic digital transformation as part of his role. “Anything that involves IT, I am accountable for,” he states.

“That’s all the way from retail through to ensuring business to business connection capability, as well as having a website that is running efficiently, responsively and is always available.”

Penman admits that there “had been a number of years where significant spend hadn’t occurred”. Consequently, since joining, Penman has overseen a comprehensive update of T2’s systems. “There was a lot of change, to say the least,” he notes. “To start with, the warehouse

05

management system had become ‘end of life’. So HighJump Advantage was installed to replace what was effectively an obsolete warehousing product.” Another system that received some TLC was point of sales (POS). “Our point of sale was end of life and very hard to support in the Asia Pacific region. So that was replaced with Triquestra’s Infinity product. Then we needed a new way of approaching communications.

Luckily, we were using Microsoft 365, w w w.t 2 tea . com

T2 TEA

so we were able to take advantage of the upgrade path for SharePoint,

“We’re giving back and showing a moral commitment to the planet”

instigate SharePoint Modern and rebuild our intranet. With that, we were also able to install Microsoft Teams and put in a fairly basic software VoIP system for anyone that needed a phone system.”

Systems change reached a new level of urgency owing to the recent headquarters move, which was both an opportunity and a chal-

06

Rohan Penman, Global Head of Technology, T2 Tea

lenge. “From the get-go of starting at T2, we were aware that a move

CLICK TO WATCH : ‘T2 EVERYDAY – HOW TO MAKE MATCHA 3 WAYS’ 07 was required,” says Penman. That

such as Freshworks. “We started off

effectively gave me 18 months to

using Freshworks servers so that we

begin planning. We had priorities in

had an ITIL framework for incidents

the business, such as the warehouse

and problems,” says Penman. “The

management system and the new

Freshworks service desk was so

POS system. It allowed us to do risk

good that we then moved to using

management and an assessment of

the project management product

what infrastructure we were running

called Freshrelease, which is effec-

to make sure that effectively any-

tively a Kanban solution that allows

thing on premise could be turned off

you to run agile scrum methodol-

for quite a long time and the business

ogy.” Private infrastructure was also

wouldn’t notice it.”

moved to the Rackspace Intensive

Following that assessment, ser-

hosting environment. “Rackspace

vices which had to remain available

Intensive allows us to have a gold

were migrated to cloud offerings

standard of support, with business w w w.t 2 tea . com

T2 TEA

08

trading 24/7, which we require as global retailers. Rackspace Intensive hosting offers that high level of management and service for all the applications that are hosted on their physical hardware.”

The systems the company is implementing are ultimately a component of providing the best possible level of ecommerce experience. One such example is the capabilities of the newly introduced POS. “Infinity POS is actively updated,” says Penman.

“It’s a platform you can happily build on, and it’s a very big enabler for us from a retail and digital point of view.

It allows a unified strategy integrating the digital world and the physical store. It’s also let us engage with alternative payment methods. We’ve started to do a lot of work with providers like Afterpay and Clearpay, which

w w w.t 2 tea . com

09

Customer-for-Life Software

Enabling T2 Tea to deliver faster IT service with context!

Free 21 day trial on products

150,000+ Customers globally love Freshworks SaaS products: IT Service Desk | Customer Support | Conversion Optimisation CRM | Chat | Softphone | AI & Bots

www.freshworks.com | team-anz@freshworks.com

has definitely started to make a dent in the UK and the US.” The advanced approach to ecommerce opens up new avenues and new levels of customer interaction, as Penman explains. “To give customers the best experience, a modern retailer needs to have con-

“To give customers the best experience, a modern retailer needs to have consistent offerings and messaging digitally and in store”

sistent offerings and messaging, both digitally and in store. That’s the crux of the approach. That includes people being able to interact in store and online and have their details and transactions synchronised so that

Rohan Penman, Global Head of Technology, T2 Tea

w w w.t 2 tea . com

11

T2 TEA

1995

Year founded

$1.8mn Revenue in US dollars

100% 12

Sustainably sourced tea

2013

Acquired by Unilever

13

w w w.t 2 tea . com

T2 TEA

14

“There was a lot of change, to say the least”

they have a history of what they’ve done, so they can access that however and whenever they wish.

It also allows the customer to shop where, how and when they want.

“Ecommerce also allows us to present the premium product that is T2 as a lifestyle. Looking on the website, customers can see that T2 is a brand

Rohan Penman, Global Head of Technology, T2 Tea

that is trying to wear its heart on its sleeve, do good and give back.”

15

That sense of giving back is

wastage is a huge focus for the busi-

reflected in sustainability initiatives

ness, and has been for a couple of

undertaken by T2 and its parent,

years. We’re giving back and showing

Unilever. While Unilever has pledged

a moral commitment to the planet.”

to halve its use of new plastic by

As T2 balances internal change with

2025, T2 itself is focused on such

new methods of external engage-

initiatives as removing polyplastics

ment, this ethos remains at the fore.

from its packaging. “There’s a lot of people in the business that are passionate about sustainability,” says Penman. “Packaging and reduced w w w.t 2 tea . com

T2 Tea T +44 (0) 800 404 8450 www.t2tea.com