Making M&S Special Again

PEOPLE ANDCULTURE

Behind most underperforming businesses there sits organisational failure and culture that has proved resistant to change. Our case is no exception. That is not to say we do not have many great and passionate colleagues. We owe it to them to make change an imperative, to simplify the culture, and create a faster, lower cost, more commercial business.

We need to become much more cost-conscious; we have to be prepared to go faster and take more risks; we have to be more commercial; and we must be honest on the state of our business. At the same time, we must retain our colleagues’ loyalty and pride in the brand; expertise in our products; and our commitment to our customers and communities. We need to harness the power of our people to drive this business-wide cultural transformation. Accelerated change is the only option.

FACING FACTS

WHAT’S HAPPENING

• We are focused on recruiting, developing and rewarding talent to ensure we have the best possible people at all levels to drive the business forward• We continue to move forward with our Smarter Working plans where improved use of space, technology and different ways of working will create a more agile and enabled workforce• We are embedding digital skills throughout our workforce with a focus on digital training and development

WHAT’S NEXT

This May we launched a suggestion scheme to harness our colleagues’ ideas and passion for M&S. ‘Suggest to Steve’ allows every colleague to play a part in improving the business. Every single idea is reviewed and Steve has pledged to write back to every colleague that submits an idea. In week one we had over 1,000 ideas submitted and already three ideas are being are being worked on by our commercial teams, including a new product range set to hit stores next month.

Steve Rowe, Chief Executive, said: “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my 30 years at M&S it’s that we have an incredible team of colleagues who are deeply passionate about making M&S successful. To transform our business and make M&S special again, we need absolutely everyone to play a part. We have 81,000 passionate colleagues, and they know M&S better than anyone.”

AN EXAMPLE OF THE WORK WE’RE DOING – SUGGEST TO STEVE

• We are moving from the heavyweight corporate structure to a family of parallel businesses, each with shared brand values but each led by its own integrated management team• Jill McDonald has been appointed Managing Director Clothing & Home and has already started to rebuild a top calibre team• In April , Stuart Machin joined as Managing Director of our Food business • Jill and Stuart now control their buying, merchandising, logistics, finance, marketing and store design• This new organisation structure should help break down some of the historic organisational silos and create a faster, more commercial and accountable M&S• We streamlined our IT function and transferred 165 roles to TCS, our technology partner• As we completed our exit from ten owned international markets and moved to our new franchise model we reduced c.1,800 roles, almost all outside the UK