MAKING M&S RICHER - OR NOT

After my last piece on M&S I noticed Julian Richer, the CEO and  100% shareholder of market leading Richer Sounds was acting as a consultant and mentor to Steve Rowe the M&S CEO.

Julian is a corporate rock star and runs a brilliant company. However I cannot think of two businesses less alike than Richer Sounds and M&S.

And Julian is a man.

Another man to join the man-heavy senior team.

Surely the advice it most needs is from a just retired opinionated and energetic woman?

And Julian is not a woman.

MONET, MONEY AND MARKS

I know…from art to retailing requires a leap of faith.

I’ve just been to the Monet exhibition at the National Gallery. The 70 paintings there would sell for over $1 billion yet he found it hard even selling his work until his mid-40s when sales took off with vivid Mediterranean coastline paintings which Americans loved.

Claude’s story matches that of most artists that we now rate as great with only a few becoming truly rich from their endeavours whilst young enough to enjoy it. Most relied on finding a sugar daddy or patron but the market itself was harsh. Yet they carried on tirelessly and in the case of Monet painting the same scene at different times of the day when the lighting was different.  In painting Rouen Cathedral he sat in a ladies changing room of a department store opposite the cathedral, ladies curtained off of course, and painted dawn to dusk.

Artists in general are not especially commercial, entrepreneurial or productive…they just carry on doing what they do regardless always trying to get better. For them quality beats cash any time. Money merely seems to be inconvenient (mostly by its absence.) And a century after they die their work (like ‘Nymphéas en fleur’) can sell for $85 million.

But it isn’t money you think about when you think of Monet, it’s the light, the colours the sheer joie de vivre.

And that’s what’s missing from M&S - retail bellwether, housewives’ favourite, the Monet of underwear. Unlike Monet its value is declining.  Unlike Monet it is no longer notable for its light, colour or joie de vivre. It’s about to depart the FTSE 100, close a dozen or more stores and ‘unify brand and culture’ (I really wish that I knew what that meant). The iron hand of Archie Norman, the man who saved Asda 27 years ago is Chairman. He is a McKinsey trained heavy who seemed short on small talk when I met him.

For years M&S has been a bit like the Brexiteers chasing new business in young markets unknown to them but “representing huge, yes huge and incalculable opportunities”, rather  than focusing on their core old market of loyalists– around 20 million of them. Instead it keeps on going hopefully after the deaf, dumb and blind kids like millennials who would rather be seen dead than in M&S. Because M&S is like grandad doing the twist.

M&S matters because when it does things well, like much of its food, like cashmere, socks, underwear or cords it does them rather well. When it flirts with the unknown it’s sorrowfully irrelevant. I shall watch its strategy of downsizing and trying to find an authentic voice intriguing but without much hope. M&S has stopped learning it seems.

Monet kept on learning. He has colour and energy. His pictures are timeless. M&S is not. Tom Peters said “you can’t shrink your way to greatness”. On that Monet and I (but not M&S) agree.

THE OLD, OLD STORY

Back now from New Year celebrations for a big exercise in “I told you so’s.” The retailers tell us about their Christmas.

Next, after several smug years, was given a sharp kick by the consumer, John Lewis had a great time and M&S had another shocker. Mark Bolland said rather plaintively “but we did brilliantly in food”. And they did. But he resigned anyway.

M&S has always understood its food customer. They have in their mind reasonably wealthy retirees who indulge themselves a bit. And then there are people who either live alone or with a partner working incredibly hard so Simply M&S is a saviour. Get a decent, low calorie Chicken Jalfrezi, a bottle of Chateau Neuf and bed.

M&S has a brilliant team of food developers. Their quality and taste is miles ahead of Waitrose who had a rather mediocre Christmas. Alone amongst food retailers M&S seem untouched by Aldi and Lidl who tortured the big grocers by stealing their luxury food sales . A Goldman Sachs Analyst confessed to finding the Goose, Champagne, Smoked Salmon, Stilton and Panettone not only much cheaper there but also better.

So how can M&S get it so right and so wrong?

I have a confession to make. In the past I’ve found M&S men’s clothes good value and a quick, lazy way of looking reasonably smart. Then I discovered style with Charles Tyrwhitt and Boden. But after a while quality went sideways in both.

Now I buy my clothes from John Lewis - stylish, interesting and easy to shop. My last visit to M&S Marble Arch left me slightly nauseous with the insane range of stuff, all of it randomly displayed and none of it exciting.

In their 12,700 sq. ft. Food Store just outside Brighton, M&S parade the best and newest they have to offer. They share “yum” factor with Nigella.

I don’t believe anyone much under 50 shops there for clothes but M&S would be embarrassed to acknowledge this. Stuart Rose was right to research the M&S brand with the Women’s Institute. But what happened next?

It’s time to be realistic and focus on the older generation who are living longer and longer.

And even longer if Dame Sally Davies has her way.

We may (she says) only drink 1 ½ bottles of wine a week, with three days alcohol free, or we’ll die prematurely.

Shocking as it may seem I am raising my own consumption level to try and die before I get dementia.
Forgive me Mary for being so cross with you. We need to balance our approach to health. But as with M&S the key target is the elderly and avoiding them becoming a cohort of medically fit, free of the curses of alcohol and tobacco, yet away with the fairies.

I think we should encourage the elderly to smoke and drink a lot.

It might save the NHS.

And it would give the rest of us a lot to look forward to.

Cheers.