Our Society Update at the Managers Conference 2019

On Tuesday I attended the Leadership conference where I was proud to present our very own Mark Taylor, Head of Store Operations, with his 35 year long service award. The next day in his own unique style he opened the Managers Conference where I gave a Society update. A write up of the day will be circulated to all colleagues but I wanted to summarise here the key points I made in my speech.

Mark Taylor (left) who celebrates a 35-year service with the Society

As a business, we must look to the future and focus on the key challenges this year and beyond. However, it is right first to reflect on last year. In terms of the big picture at the start, we had to deal with the ‘beast from the east’ and problems with our national distribution network. Quarter two saw a marked improvement due to a great summer and the World Cup. The concerns over Brexit and the global uncertainty meant storm clouds were gathering as we approached the second half. The energy market became increasingly difficult through rising cost price and competition as well the government’s energy price cap making it a very difficult market place for us.

We had much to be proud of including the Phone Coop joining us, the launch of our Little Pioneers Brand in Childcare, a 5 star rating from Business in the Community, the launch of Colleagues Connect and us winning Leading Coop of the Year for the third time to name just a few highlights.

As well as colleagues, our 700,000 members are our greatest asset so the major challenge in the next year is to deliver better value for them and make their lives more rewarding. Only a minority of our members use more than one business and we need to fix this.

At the present time, 42% of our trade is with our Members and over the next five years, we plan to increase this to over 50% and I would like to see it nearer to 60%. However, the world around us is changing very fast and as a business, we need to be able to adapt. People, in particular, will want to access our products and services in different ways using new technology so we must invest in our digital future.

In terms of increasing value for our members, we need to do this by drawing on three key themes: Clarity, Unity and Intensity. Clarity is all about our Members trusting us to make their lives less complicated and more rewarding in their day to day, for example, I want our Travel business to become the Coop for all our members when booking their holidays. Unity is all about us speaking with one voice which will mean all our businesses working more closely together to give better value. Intensity is all about delivering more with the resources we have.

To improve value for our members will also require taking difficult decisions. When taking these we will be driven by our DOES values. The road to doing this will not be straight but this is a business owned by you. So, as we go forward I want to hear from you on how we are doing. You can do this by responding to this blog and also through our other communication channels like Colleagues Connect and Colleague Councils.

That’s all for this week’s blog and if you would like to get involved in the conversation, please let me know your comments below.