Another year has flown by – 2017 in Review

Another year has flown by and we are on the threshold of 2018!

Who isn’t sick of hearing about Brexit? We may say it in jest but we must all take into consideration the effects of Brexit on our businesses, our employees, for our suppliers, partners and clients – they are challenging times ahead, but at the end of the day it must still be business as usual.

Every year at TST, we aim to increase our knowledge and grow our expertise across a wide range of areas that impact our business and our service offering. During 2017 we joined the Heart of the City (HOC) in London – an organisation supported by a large number of City corporations – which helps SMEs to be more responsible businesses, doing good, having a CSR strategy and giving back to the community in which they operate. It has been a true pleasure to connect with like-minded organisations and corporations – this is a very large part of our commitment to making change happen. In December, The Sourcing Team graduated from the Heart of the City and we thank the team at HOC and of course, the corporations supporting such a great initiative.

In April we were so delighted to pick the EcoVadis award as a result of our sustainability scoring as a SME in Europe. But it doesn’t stop there. We again improved our scores on both EcoVadis 2017 and CIPS sustainability. And our Head of Sustainability is busy communicating our goals to do even more on our corporate social responsibility programme in 2018  – including our CEO driving awareness and best practice on ethical sourcing, the Modern Slavery Act as well as creating even more sustainable solutions.

Early in the year, our CEO visited the US and presented at the PPAI Expo in January 2017,  sharing 28 years of expertise as an ethical sourcing and being a responsible premium sourcing company. This was a great opportunity to share insights with competitors and suppliers from our highly respected American Trade association who are leading the way with their fabulous training programme.

We engaged with exciting new partners in 2017 for both design and technology. Watch this space as we move into 2018!  We have an outstanding team that will bring together ethically sourced, quality products with award winning design and links with technology.

At Pink Towers we are constantly focused on driving improvements in efficiency and service. With the support of our outsourced marketing partner we launched a new website linking internal data to the site.  We have moved to a more efficient order management system and taken on a new CRM.  This will allow us to share new products in a more seamless process effectively providing product and market insights along with product trends for our clients and prospective clients.

In 2017, there was a huge focus on The Modern Slavery Act, with the challenges of delivering on section 54 - transparency - and we have been busy sharing insights up and down the supply chain. Our CEO was once again delighted to be asked to speak and share her experience in ethical sourcing at the Procurex Wales in November – a truly fabulous event in the public and not for profit sector. The Welsh Government have certainly shown amazing leadership and commitment to doing the right thing and have provided excellent guidance on The Modern Slavery Act.

Finally, as we move to close off 2017, we are putting in place the final details for our 2018 plans – commencing early in January with a calendar of dates where we are attending a variety of trade fairs in search of new and exciting products to share with our clients. We also welcome an addition to our client service team.

We can’t end without thanking our clients for their continued support – we are truly blessed to be working with so many awesome, like minded, responsible clients – and we thank you all and your wonderful teams and wish all an amazing Christmas and New Year.

We couldn’t do what we do, and have achieved so far, without our dedicated supply partners – we thank you for your commitment to change and best practice standards and finally, to our wonderful, hardworking Pink Team – Thank you.

Wishing you all a wonderful Christmas break and hope that the New Year brings you and your families Health, Happiness and Success for 2018.

We close on the 22nd December at 4.30 pm and we'll be back 2nd January at 9.30 am.

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