Latest / Best of Business / John Journee: Warehouse Group interim CEO on the company's multi-million dollar net loss

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John Journee: Warehouse Group interim CEO on the company's multi-million dollar net loss · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks. There'd be
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: follow this and our wide range of podcast now on iHeartRadio.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Heather Duplessiela, Now, it was.
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  Speaker 2: A bit of a blood bath for the Warehouse today
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  Speaker 2: the group announced a fifty four million dollar loss for
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  Speaker 2: the year. The chair Joan Withers, has described it as unacceptable.
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  Speaker 2: Jean Journey is the interim chief executive at the Warehouse
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  Speaker 2: Group and with us now Hey John Hi, Heather Jones says,
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  Speaker 2: it's unacceptable.
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  Speaker 3: What do you say, totally agree. We're certainly not where
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  Speaker 3: we need to be and the result there is a
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  Speaker 3: poor performance.
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  Speaker 2: What's gone wrong? Do you think.
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  Speaker 3: Part of that is strategy and part of its execution.
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  Speaker 3: We had a strategy set about five years ago that
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  Speaker 3: was in hindsight to ambitious and also distracted us from
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  Speaker 3: looking after our core brands at the level of detail
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  Speaker 3: that we need to so.
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  Speaker 2: Core brand being obviously the Warehouse. What needs to change
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  Speaker 2: at the Warehouse? Do you think?
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  Speaker 3: Sorry, what was that? Head?
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  Speaker 2: What needs to change at the we else?
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  Speaker 3: We need to we need to get better more often.
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  Speaker 3: You know, we get it right most of the time.
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  Speaker 3: We need to get it right all the time and
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  Speaker 3: that's the difference in retail retails. Detail. Customers notice when
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  Speaker 3: you get your detail wrong, and we've dropped the ball
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  Speaker 3: on that.
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  Speaker 2: That is that like, if you've got is it is
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  Speaker 2: it quality problems? Is it coolness problems? What is it?
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  Speaker 3: It's it's it's the small things that make a difference, Heather.
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  Speaker 3: You know, basically, when you're in retail, you have to
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  Speaker 3: get everything right. And we've got things right that we
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  Speaker 3: were focusing on. That we missed the ball and that
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  Speaker 3: on the areas we weren't focusing on. We had moved
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  Speaker 3: more of our range in the warehouse to continuity, daily essentials,
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  Speaker 3: every day needs, and that's an important part of the
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  Speaker 3: offer and customers are loving for us for that part
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  Speaker 3: of the range. But that's not all they wanted from us.
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  Speaker 3: They wanted newness, excitement, trend, coolness, kidness, and we used
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  Speaker 3: to give them that in spades, and when we moved
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  Speaker 3: into the sort of trying to be earnest about our
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  Speaker 3: core essentials, which is really important, we lost that excitement,
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  Speaker 3: we lost the emphasis and the other parts of what
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  Speaker 3: people wanted from us. And that's what we've recognized as
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  Speaker 3: one of the core turnaround fixes that we need to do.
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  Speaker 3: We've already started on that, but unfortunately it takes a
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  Speaker 3: while for that product to show up in store, so
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  Speaker 3: it's only just showing up now. But when it is
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  Speaker 3: showing up, our customers are loving it. You know, they've
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  Speaker 3: been really disappointed that we haven't given it to them before.
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  Speaker 3: Just like you said before, you would expect us to
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  Speaker 3: do it. We didn't do it for you. Our customers
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  Speaker 3: are saying the same on a number of lines. But
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  Speaker 3: again when we get it back in stock, they go, yay,
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  Speaker 3: you're back. We love it because we've got ninety two
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  Speaker 3: million people visiting our stores every year. They really want
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  Speaker 3: us to be back in the game we used to be.
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  Speaker 3: They want us to be, and we're determined to be
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  Speaker 3: back in there.
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  Speaker 2: Like a bad boyfriend day. We want to love you
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  Speaker 2: that you for making a house with the warehouse.
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  Speaker 3: We're the one that got away.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, is that right? A positive spin on it? What's
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  Speaker 2: going wrong with then?
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  Speaker 3: Niles has actually performed the strongest through the period we've
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  Speaker 3: been distracted, So their model is quite strong. I heard
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  Speaker 3: before that you'd had some service issues. That's disappointing. It
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  Speaker 3: is not the general experience we get from our customers
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  Speaker 3: are at promoter score, which is the measure of our
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  Speaker 3: customer satisfaction, is the highest in a no Lemming brand,
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  Speaker 3: and they are the market leader, and through a tough time,
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  Speaker 3: they've actually held their market share and held their customer
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  Speaker 3: base the best of our all three brands. But even
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  Speaker 3: they have suffered a little bit around the group distractions,
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  Speaker 3: around the bigger picture that the ecosystem strategy, so they
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  Speaker 3: weren't spending all their time on what mattered to no
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  Speaker 3: Leaming customers. And it's those little things that make a difference.
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  Speaker 3: The fact that we should have had the staff member
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  Speaker 3: knowing which apple which watch was waterproof. You know, that
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  Speaker 3: is what we do. That is something that we pride ourselves,
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  Speaker 3: you know. Basically our teams proudly call themselves passionate experts.
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  Speaker 3: So they spent a lot of time on product knowledge
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  Speaker 3: and learning about that products. You know, whether that was
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  Speaker 3: an isolated example, we've got the wrong person on the
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  Speaker 3: wrong day, but that doesn't really matter to you or
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  Speaker 3: your husband that got the wrong advice.
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  Speaker 2: I don't even have a watch John for my birthday.
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  Speaker 3: Now, and I'm gusted. I'm gut worry.
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  Speaker 2: I know how to use the Internet. I'll order it
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  Speaker 2: from you. Guys. Hey, listen very quickly on the Stephen
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: Tindall thing. Are you guys still is that office still.
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  Speaker 1: Live or no?
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  Speaker 3: That's in Stephen's core. We don't have any control over
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  Speaker 3: what our shareholders do, and don't they listen.
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  Speaker 2: John, thank you for talking to us, and I really
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  Speaker 2: really hope you are able to turn this around, because,
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  Speaker 2: as I say, we do love your business. That is
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  Speaker 2: John Jena, who is the interim chief executive at the
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  Speaker 2: Warehouse and has obviously got his work cut out. From
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  Speaker 2: nineteen Away from six.
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