Inside John Lewis section one

Inside John Lewis section one

In this documentary, a recording team get the chance to look behind the sense of one of the UK’s biggest companies, John Lewis. In the first section, it shows how they dealt with the 2009 recession in the UK and John Lewis Was hit hard as profit were down by over 50% and had massive strains on the business structure. This caused John Lewis to have to make some major changes to the company and one employee at John Lewis said, “the most important aim is to secure long-term success for the business” Andy street. He also believed that the reason for the loses was down to high cost and low sales, so John Lewis aimed to change this.

Changing John Lewis’ fashion image  

John Lewis is spread into many different markets and their clothes market is one of their weaker ones. This caused a need for change in the image of the fashion side of the business, as John Lewis is seen to have clothing for the older generation rather than the younger one. I think as they have been around for so long their core customer base, which is the older generation, are the more loyal customers and will not respond well to the change in image and this could have serious problems on the sales. John Lewis is more focused on the premium side of the market with their high prices and I think it will not appeal to the younger generation as they like to buy cloth that are cheap or big fashion brands. If I was John Lewis I would focus on keeping more of the older generation on board as there is so much competition in the younger generation market with Primark and Topman. However, they went through with the idea and employed Jo Hooper, who is recognised for successful redeveloping the Debenhams clothing line. One way in which she starts the redevelopment was by conducting some primary research, by sending some customers to Paris and getting them to choose some outfits that they liked. I like the idea of primary research because I feel like in brings the best results as you can make is specific to your business and this means that the results can be applied to the redevelopment easier. Jo redeveloped the clothing line and had positive results as they beat the budget by 15% and business was up 5.5%. however, feedback from customer said that the younger generation preferred it to the old cloth, but more importantly the older generation felt like they were being pushed away. I feel like the core customer base should also be the main concern when marketing a product as this is where you are going to get the most profit. That’s why I feel like if John Lewis was to come across this problem again then I think they should maintain their old clothing like to please the core customers,but release a separate line focused on the younger generation. This way they can adjusted the price so it appeals to the younger generation more as well.

Biggest John Lewis outside of London

One strategy they showed in the documentary was the building of a new store in Cardiff. This came from the drive to increase sales and this £35 million-pound expansion was how John Lewis believed they could do it by. The new development needed 750 employees to maintain it and their recruitment process was shown in the documentary. The first task they were asked to do was say their name and something interesting about yourself and they then went on to use Lego to try and copies the design of a house in small groups. The good things about their recruitment process was that it allowed the key characteristics to shine through as it got them to think creatively and see how they would work in a team which is very import for John Lewis as they are known for their good customer service, so problems must be avoided. However I didn’t see any tests on the individuals as it was mostly team work and this could mean that certain members could have been credit unfairly, as certain member would have contributed less than others. John Lewis like to refer to their employees as partner as they believe that they are a part of the business. One of the partners was asked why they wanted to work for John Lewis and he said that it looks like a good place to work for and there is room for promotion. This Links to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as the top level of the pyramid is self-actualisation, and this room for promotion leads to more motivation as they are able to process up the business structure and reach their full potential. Once they had chosen the 750 partners, then went on to training them and this was a very important stage for John Lewis, as they are known for their expert knowledge with their floor staff. What I liked about their training was the fact that all the staff had to know about all the different section of the store not just one, this allows them to cover for each other at busy times, keeping the customer service at high standards. They also made the partners try the products before and this meant they have an even better understanding of them and allows them to give the best recommendation depending on the customer. From personal experience, when I have shopped at John Lewis I have always felt that the staff have a great background knowledge on all the products and they make me feel more confident that I am making the right purchase. This also why I feel that customers are whiling to pay slightly more at John Lewis because of the high quality in customer service. 

Cuts and Relocation of the disruption centre 

As Andy street is a long-term thinker, his decision to close down the old disruption centre and build a brand new one at Milton Keynes,which will help lower the costs of employment and increase efficiency. With the more modern set up in Milton Keynes, there is more technology in place that can replace employees which will help them lower the costs in wages in the long term. I feel like this was the best strategy in the first section of the documentary, as the old disruption centre was mainly operated by manual labour and this will drive cost up massively. This also allows them to introduce the new stocking process of were a product would be disrupted as soon as it brought by the customer. This is called just in time method and it has its advantages as storing cost are lowered massively as they are not kept in the stores and it also gives them more space in the store as well. However, if there is a sudden and unpredictable cluster of sales in a certain product then this could cause them to run out of stock and sales could be lost because of this. They had to make 40 people from the headquarters and 200 from the disruption centre redundant. John Lewis do a yearly employees survey and they noticed a sudden decrease in rating of the question about job security and this will have been an impact from all the cuts. One theory from Herzberg shows that employees will become dissatisfied with their job if it lacks security and this will become a major problem for John Lewis, as their staff will become less motivated. It so important for John Lewis to have motivated staff as their image is so reliant on the good customer service they provide.  If I was faced with this problem I would make it my top concern to deal with as the image of the brand is at risk and I would do this by working with the employees and getting them more involved with the decision making, so they feel more secure.       

Overall, I feel like John Lewis have made some good decisions that have helped redevelop the business and they even took the risk of doing it during time of recession which shows they have a lot of entrepreneurial traits within the organisation. However, I also feel like I have learnt that you shouldn’t put customers in front of other aspects of the business, like employees, as all the sections of the business will directly impact the others. There need to be an even balance for a business to run successfully.  The decision to make the cuts was not well taken by the employees and I feel like the economic reality of the recession causes there to be a loss in relationship between John Lewis and its employees. Will these negative impacts effects the future for John Lewis or will they retain employee satisfaction?