Page 44 - HW March 2022

global eyes
Kingfisher makes changes to senior management
DIY multi-national Kingfisher PLC, operating across eight countries with retail banners including B&Q, Castorama, Brico Dépôt, Screwfix, TradePoint and Koçtaş, has announced several senior management changes.
Sebastien Krysiak, currently CEO of Castorama Poland, has been appointed to the new role of Chief Commercial Officer, assuming leadership of the Offer & Sourcing, Supply Chain & Logistics and Customer Insight functions across the Group and with Henri Solère, Chief Offer & Sourcing Officer, reporting to him.
Following his success at Brico Dépôt, Pascal Gil takes over as CEO of Castorama Poland, and is replaced as CEO of Brico Dépôt France by Group Sourcing team leader Laurent Vittoz.
At the same time, Chief Supply Chain Officer Martin Lee is leaving Kingfisher, having “successfully navigated Kingfisher through the unprecedented challenge
in global supply chains during the pandemic, leaving us in a stronger position to serve our customers” and leaving the Supply Chain & Logistics team “significantly strengthened”.
Thierry Garnier, CEO of Kingfisher says of the changes: “As we enter the next phase of the Powered by Kingfisher strategy, accelerating investment for growth, we
are strengthening our leadership team in a number of important functions.
“We are particularly delighted that these appointments are internal, reflecting the management strength across the business and our commitment to the development of our teams.”
Following these changes, the Kingfisher Group Executive is as follows: Thierry Garnier, Chief Executive Officer Graham Bell, CEO B&Q UK and Ireland Bernard Bot, Chief Financial Officer Pascal Gil, CEO Castorama Poland Sebastien Krysiak, Chief Commercial Officer Elizabeth Messud, General Counsel
John Mewett, CEO Screwfix
Alain Rabec, CEO France
Kate Seljeflot, Chief People Officer
Adela Smeu, CEO Romania
Henri Solère, Chief Offer & Sourcing Officer
JJ Van Oosten, Chief Digital and Technology Officer
www.kingfisher.com
Rapid home delivery top priority as home working drives UK e-commerce boom
UK CONSUMERS WORKING and ordering goods from home during the pandemic will add £20 billion to the UK’s online home delivery market by 2025, according to new research from e-commerce delivery management software company Metapack in partnership with research consultancy Retail Economics.
To be precise, UK retailers will see an additional £19.6 billion of online home deliveries by 2025 because of the impact of Covid-19, with online expected to account for nearly half of total non-food sales by 2025.
And this shift online is expected to
be permanent, with Metapack’s new Ecommerce Delivery Benchmark report showing well over a quarter of UK consumers expecting to continue to shop more online.
These “digital shifters” are expected
to support an additional £22.4 billion in online sales; however, the lasting impact of COVID-19 will not be felt equally across all retail categories.
Instead, the research predicts that apparel, homewares, and health & beauty will experience a greater permanent shift online, brought about by online discovery since the pandemic.
As a result of this shift online, 36% of UK consumers expect to visit physical stores less in the future, a far greater proportion than those expecting to cut back in the US (29%), Germany (21%) or France (17%).
A quarter of UK consumers have worked or are working from home more since the pandemic, of which half expect to shop more online permanently, compared to
around a quarter of those whose place of work has not been impacted from the pandemic.
So, by 2025, UK home workers expect their proportion of online orders delivered to their home to rise by 11.5%, compared to an average of 7.5% among those that haven’t faced a change in their work.
An interesting side effect of more consumers working from home is the increased success rate of deliveries, so
it makes sense that many new wave online shoppers value speed ahead of convenience, cost and carbon footprint of deliveries.
In terms of expectations being placed
on UK retailers as a result, says Duncan Licence, VP of Global Product at Metapack says: “Retailers have reached a crossroads, they need to diversify their delivery options and invest in the right infrastructure
and technology to meet the new needs
of their consumers, or they will struggle
to compete, especially as the shopping experience becomes synonymous with the delivery experience.”
Set against greater consumer expectations, the upside of all this according to Richard Lim, Chief Executive of Retail Economics is that “Although the demand for speed will put pressure on supply chains, home workers have both a greater ability and greater willingness to pay for delivery and returns compared to average online shoppers, which is critical for profitability amid rising costs and elevated customer expectations.”
www.metapack.com www.retaileconomics.co.uk
42 NZHJ | MARCH 2022
MORE AT www.hardwarejournal.co.nz