John Lewis: A Giant, Sleeping

Like others in the UK retail sector, John Lewis Partnership has found life tough of late. In the summer, the group revealed a trading loss (its first ever) of ￡25m. To compound the challenges it and others like it face, last week its outgoing chairman Sir Charlie Mayfield unveiled one of the most dramatic shake-ups in the company’s 155-year history.

Intended to save ￡100 million in costs, the radical step will see John Lewis’s Department Stores and Waitrose Supermarkets operations merged and run as a single organisation – a move, it’s said, that is designed to end duplication, speed up decision making and reorganise teams into clearer functional departments to serve both businesses better. A surprise move, perhaps, but one that’s right out of the corporate ‘accountancy’ playbook when there’s a need to reduce costs seriously and proof, if it were needed, that past performance cannot be relied upon indefinitely, nor should it be taken for granted.

In this process, JLP will lose one third of its senior management. In future, just seven senior executives with different responsibilities assigned to them will be in charge to run (and integrate) the combined company next year. Sir Charlie’s own replacement, in the form of Sharon White from OFCOM – who will take up her own role next year – was an appointment that also ‘came out of the blue’ and will be one to watch, both inside and outside of the partnership, given her lack of retail experience. What these combined decisions demonstrate is that tough times require bold action and brave solutions.

“This is no time for the faint hearted or battle weary in retail.”

But perhaps the news highlights a more serious question: has this once much-admired retailer, seemingly ‘can do no wrong’ British retailer, with royal warrants to its name, been sleeping at the wheel?

If instore retail is all about ‘the experience’, then right now, John Lewis has much work to do if it is to stem the steep decline in its appeal to shoppers, recent poor performance and achieve a return to its renowned and previously much-revered brand roots.

Let’s be clear. This is no time for the faint hearted or battle weary in retail. But nor is it a time for brands like John Lewis to “take their eye off the ball” in their delivery of the ‘day job’. Getting distracted and lost in the mire of an internally self-consuming, complex corporate reorganisation will inevitably involve risk – something that JLP can ill-afford at the moment.

“If this reorganisation is to succeed, JLP will need to change its position and priorities, and urgently”

In real terms there is more potential to further disappointment shoppers in the short term, and failing to support the store based Partners who are trying to do their best for customers on the frontline. Both of these are realistic prospects and potentially worrying consequences for the Partnership brands and stores in the months ahead. If ever there was a time for to be getting retail right instore, it is now. Much is at stake...

If this reorganisation is to succeed, JLP will need to change its position and priorities, and urgently. And not, as is currently fashionable within the retail industry, simply to be seen to instigate a long drawn out process of ‘retail transformation’, or for incremental change.

What is required instead is decisive and clear-headed hard retail revolution; one that takes effect in the shortest possible time. I believe this is all about returning to the successful, differentiating retail strategies and everyday working practices that once made John Lewis great: namely, to excel in superior Store Standards and outstanding Customer Service. Importantly this means tilting reinvestment funds into store based Partners, retail process and practices of retail execution, not more e-commerce or tech solutions.

This advice is summed up by a recent and disappointing visit to one of John Lewis’s busiest department stores in Milton Keynes in the same week the same corporate changes were announced, where the marked decline in these areas was only too clear.

“I came away feeling nothing but utter despair.”

My visit was prompted by a 20% OFF HOME discount event. If ever there was an example of an investment product – one coming with considerable concerns for use – buying a new mattress is it. It’s in a similar league to finding new jeans, a car, or even a house in the extent of choice, time and thought required to buy it right. For those who have been there before, this is not a product to be impulsively bought as a ‘click and deliver’ purchase, no matter how attractive the price discount. Researching of brands and options is possible and, increasingly, made easy online. But before purchase, there is the (excruciating) requirement to test out different products and in the process, to get help, advice and service from those who in JLP are catchily known as ‘product coaches’.

Having spent around an hour in Milton Keynes the store (which by today’s average is a considerable dwell time) I came away feeling nothing but utter despair.

Suffice to say, that at around 16.30, the only Partner who was in the bed department seemed to have much better things to do with their time – busy with everything that avoided absolutely any engagement with me until I’d all but exhausted my own exploration of the products and, 30 minutes later, was about to leave.

Then, with cursory and almost begrudging contact with the Partner, I ‘advised myself’ to visit a specialist bed store instead (but with a sinking feeling that this should be John Lewis and where JLP could excel, as my needs were little more than for some ‘old fashioned’ help). In fact, I was more than ready to part with a little under ￡1000 of my money.

With my hopes and faith in John Lewis almost but not entirely dashed, on my way out I picked up a milk pan from the cookware department. It was a welcome find; having ordered the same item online the night before, I woke to an email saying that it was now out of stock, despite being sent a confirmed order note by email (!). With milk pan in hand, and with it a mini moment of joy, I proceeded to the cash desk.

The context that comes next is important. At 17.30 (a full 2.5 hours before closing time), the cask desk area could, at best, be described as an area in complete meltdown, complete with the detritus of the day laid bare: miscellaneous clutter, rubbish, unwanted returns, plastic bags, countless cardboard boxes, overflowing bins, admin folders and general crap everywhere! OMG! The worst part of all, as I chatted to the JL Partner about this, was that they were entirely bemused why any of this should matter in the slightest to me – seemingly both unaware and unconcerned about the impact that such a sight (and poor retail practices) has on both brand perception and the customer experience.

“Cheery though the Partner may have been, the expensively installed Experience Desk was anything but.”

Yes, I paid for the item and my money was gratefully deposited into the till. Frankly though, I felt disappointed and thoroughly let down by JLP (so often a trusted friend) through the shoddy retail ‘experience‘. Crest fallen, I held my precious shiny milk pan close to my chest as if subconsciously taking ‘him’ safely away to a good home. My home.

About to leave the store, I passed a cheery Partner behind the recently installed JL ‘Experience Desk’. I know of these having read about and visited these at the company’s Oxford and London Westfield London stores. This was part of what was then the new Managing Director Paula Nichold’s plan to find new opportunities for increasing shopper engagement, brand and service differentiation and important new revenue streams for stores by creating paid for ‘instore experiences’ for shoppers.

Cheery though the Partner may have been, the expensively installed Experience Desk was anything but. It was littered with random paper flyers; a Halloween toy cat; a promo tin for Quality Street; and countless bits of non-essential clutter. I spoke with the Partner about this – keen to investigate if they thought customers would have a view about how the area was presented. Immediately interested to know what was on my mind. I suggested that we take a walk across to the cash desk where I had earlier made payment. After a short, friendly conversation together, the Partner was clearly moved and a little ashamed by the condition of the area, apologetic and sincere in her response commenting, “we should be the Rolls-Royce of retailing. We once were.”

“My recent personal experience…should definitely act as an early wake up call.”

I suggested that if she had the opportunity to share my feedback at a team meeting that it would be good to do so. That she should highlight to Partners in store that it’s not just the big things like installing a new ‘Experience Desk’ that matter, but getting everyday ‘small details right’, whenever the customer is shopping that really count.

As the company’s reformed senior management team look to the future, I hope they take some time to stop and think and reflect on the past. In moving a business forward not everything will be reliant on ‘new’ job replacing digital solutions. Tech can enhance retail productivity and back end efficiency, but it is no substitute for skilled and motivated people doing real jobs. Talking to customers and, importantly, long-serving JLP Partners about what has worked best before and what shoppers actually want instore, can be a invaluable stage in developing an effective recovery plan.

As retail sits on the cusp of an exciting new decade for the 2020’s, we have reached the point where retailers should be talking less enthusiastically and behaving less ‘lemming like’ in their embrace of new tech solutions, instead focusing on time honoured and commercially proven practices of great ‘retailcraft’. 

For an established business, especially one with such a rich heritage as John Lewis Partnership, this could be the easiest and potentially most effective development move it could make to help restore its fortunes. ‘Old school’ it may be. But it can also organic and enriching – realising the deep Partner experience that exists within the business and refocusing people with new ideas and skills to help them do better. Recent restructuring aside, my recent personal experience within one of its stores should act as an early wake up call that the changes required to return the business to its rightful position within retail run much deeper than the top of its organisational pyramid.