Looking ahead in 2020

Christmas has been a busy period for all our trading groups, and I wanted to thank everyone who has worked so hard over the holiday period. It is a particularly busy time for our largest business, Food Retail. I’m pleased to report that over Christmas we have seen strong food sales with growth of over 3% on a like for like basis compared with the same two-week period last year. This is likely to be better than most other food retailers and is testament once again to the hard work put in by our Food colleagues over the festive season.

Looking ahead, as you would expect, much of the time spent by the Board and Executive is dedicated to forward planning for the future. This covers all sorts of areas including business development, financial planning and stakeholder relationships.

As I look ahead to 2020 and the start of a new decade, I thought I would share the top six objectives which I believe will shape our year ahead:

1. Preparing for and dealing with, the implications of Brexit and the wider political landscape; With a significant Government majority in parliament we should expect an increased pace of change in legislation and new trade deals with the European Union and the rest of the world which will have implications for all of our businesses in some way.

2. Ensuring a strong and stable financial footing for the Society which will provide for careful business investment and growth for the longer-term. I have written about the challenges during 2019 caused by the Energy market and significant effects on our trading profitability over the last few years. We had to take decisive action last year to rectify this and to reduce the impact this particular business area was having on the rest of our businesses and our potential for growth. We will still need to deal with some of the fallout over the next year and will need to continue making difficult decisions and being decisive about how we make improvements, but we can now start to develop our plans on the basis of a much firmer starting position.

3. Cementing and developing the relationship with our new strategic partner Octopus Energy as part of a wider utilities’ strategy; The agreement reached with Octopus Energy has removed the risks and costs associated with the full operation of an energy business. As we have now completed the integration with their systems our attention will be focussed on growing customer numbers through the partnership including combining our telecoms services with energy deals and importantly, developing the exciting prospects for Co-op Community Energy as part of the Joint venture with Octopus.

4. Offering greater opportunities and rewards for you; Our colleagues will be the driving force behind an accelerated pace of change and business development and it is more important than ever that we recognise the need for a more dynamic and rewarding approach as part of a far-reaching total reward strategy. This will include how we develop and train you for today and for tomorrow’s opportunities as well as providing improved benefits which are more flexible and relevant to what matters to you and to where and how you work.

5. Connecting more of our members with more of our businesses; We have over 700,000 members and are the largest Co-op In the UK which is entirely owned by consumers. But the fact is that less than 10% of our members trade with more than one of our businesses. This represents a massive opportunity for us but to fully embrace it, we need to improve our brand marketing and communications, introduce new systems and improve the incentives and rewards for members. This approach will also see us implement a new growth strategy for our Travel business and more dynamic rewards for food shoppers.

6. Continuing to build strong, long-term relationships with our wider stakeholders; This will include other Co-operatives, our suppliers and our communities through the further development of our brilliant regional community programme. I spent a good deal of time visiting our community partners during December and I am extremely proud of the work we have all done in building lasting relationships and support for members of our communities and particularly for some of the most vulnerable. It also means being more ambitious on our campaigning work on the environment, in particular reducing single-use plastics and our carbon footprint as well as continuing with our work on mental health and modern slavery. 2020 will see us go even further and we will introduce new initiatives to build on the work done and develop a long-term legacy for our great Co-operative Society within the very heart of our communities.

Our final hamper winner!

Tina Wells in CIT was the winner for my final Fairtrade hamper giveaway. Tina decided to change to a recycled and waste-free Christmas by buying gifts from the local charity shop. As well as baking to make food hampers for family and friends, she chose to omit giving Christmas cards and thank people in person. Well done on an ethical Christmas Tina!

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