Kingfisher Announces ‘Powered by Kingfisher’ Strategic Plan

Kingfisher revealed its latest strategic plan in this morning's update on FY 2019/20, entitled: 'Powered by Kingfisher'. 

Strategy update

• Group executive team complete including eight new appointments

• Initial focus on: improving operations in France, implementing new trading approaches, recalibrating balance between Group and local activities, enabling efficient store picking for click & collect and home delivery, and pausing or stopping some initiatives to focus our resources

• Encouraged by Q4 19/20 and early FY 20/21 LFL sales performance

• New ‘Powered by Kingfisher’ strategic plan: distinct retail banners addressing diverse customer needs, ‘powered’ by the Group

‘Powered by Kingfisher’ – Committed to returning the business to growth

Under our new strategic plan, ‘Powered by Kingfisher’, we will utilise our core strengths and commercial assets, and ‘power’ our distinct retail banners in order to address the significant growth opportunities that exist within the home improvement market, returning the business to growth. To serve customers effectively today, we also need to be digital and service orientated, while leveraging our strong store assets.

Following the appointment of Thierry Garnier as CEO in late September 2019 the business identified a number of immediate priorities (‘Focus and fix’ in 2020) for the Group, starting with building the new Group Executive team. These priorities are detailed below and underpin the implementation of our new strategic plan. Our medium term priorities under the new plan are also detailed below (numbers 2 to 8), centred around empowering our distinct retail banners and simplifying Kingfisher’s operating model, embracing digital and own exclusive brands, and returning the business to growth. In 2020, the outbreak of COVID-19 rapidly became the most critical issue facing our business. Managing the impact on our business is therefore our top priority. As a result of this, we are continuing to keep the timing of investments under review in some of the medium term priorities detailed in numbers 2 to 8 below, based on the needs of the business.

Our key strategic priorities under ‘Powered by Kingfisher’ are as follows:

1) ‘Focus and fix’ in 2020 (including managing the impact of COVID-19 on the business)

2) Move to a balanced, simpler local-group operating model with an agile culture

3) Grow e-commerce sales

4) Build a mobile-first, service orientated customer experience

5) Differentiate and grow through own exclusive brands (OEB) 6) Test new store concepts and adapt our store footprint

7) Source and buy better, reduce our costs and our inventory

8) Lead the industry in Responsible Business practices

Learn more about Kingfisher's performance in the following documents and news stories:

Kingfisher: Annual Like-For-Like Sales Decline Of 1.5%
Screwfix reports strong performance and e-commerce growth
Kingfisher: International Performance 2019/2020

Read part one of the full Kingfisher results publication here.
Read part two of the full Kingfisher results publication here. 

Thierry Garnier, Chief Executive Officer, said: “Throughout the COVID-19 crisis, our priorities have been clear – to provide support to the communities in which we operate, to look after our colleagues as a responsible employer, to serve our customers as a retailer of essential goods, and to protect our business for the long term.

“On joining the business in late September 2019 my priorities were to build the executive team, stabilise our operational performance and prepare a new plan. We have a strong new team in place. We ended FY 19/20 in better shape, after a disappointing first nine months, by returning the Group to positive like-for-like sales growth in Q4 as well as for the start of FY 20/21

 “While the coronavirus crisis has obviously shifted our immediate priorities, we have continued to plan for the longer term and implement our new strategic plan. It would be a mistake not to. Kingfisher is well positioned within a home improvement market that is resilient and has attractive long term growth prospects. We have strong market positions and distinctly positioned retail banners that address diverse customer needs. These are major strengths in a world that is so volatile and uncertain.

“Our clear intent is to become a more digital and service orientated company, using our strong store assets as a platform. We will continue to develop our own exclusive brands as a differentiator, cater for diverse local customer needs, and each retail banner will have its own positioning and plan. We will ‘power’ these banners as a Group. This is our new strategic direction, ‘Powered by Kingfisher’.

“The coronavirus crisis has provided us with the most unexpected test of these plans, while really pushing our capabilities as a business. The results have reinforced our strategic direction, demonstrated how our operations and teams can be agile, and pushed us to be bolder. Together, we look to the future with confidence and are committed to returning Kingfisher to growth.”

Source : Kingfisher

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