Page 22 - HW August 2020

hard talking
ONE SIZE DOESN’T FIT ALL – THE FUTURE IS LOCAL
WITH FLETCHER BUILDING’S full year results not due until 19 August, two full weeks after our conversation, we can’t talk in any detail about the past year or anything that might be construed as a forward looking statement.
Bruce McEwen does acknowledge that the broader company, including Distribution, have been through a restructuring phase “to right-size the business for the market that we see in front of us.”
Still, he’s also quick to ask:“How long will this last? And what will it look like on the other side?
“None of us know, but I think we can assume it’s going to be smaller, harder, and tighter and we need to get ourselves match t for that. So that’s largely what we’ve done.”
Without giving too much away, Bruce McEwen and his team will admit they’ve been seeing some “quite stark” sectorial and
geographic differences in demand.
“If we look at our volumes across May-June-July, we’ve seen
different geographic regions showing different outcomes and I think we’ll see more of that.
“And so I think that part of the challenge is understanding the very different messages across different sectors, across different geographies.”
As a result, businesses will have to “think in quarters”, to “work in geographies rather than across the country” and potentially, says Bruce McEwen, it’s going to mean that retailers and merchants will need different offers in different places.
“What makes sense in the depths of the South Island compared to Auckland might be different. And so localisation may become more important.”
serving up everything that the customer needs in a digital way and creating a digital ecosystem that’s on 7 by 24.”
He’s nevertheless realistic and ne with the fact that customers will still walk in with orders on a piece of 4x2 or a bit of GIB while others will be happy ordering on their phone or on their tablet, on a Sunday night.
As with the physical network, one size doesn’t t all: “What’s been interesting is customers that have gravitated to digital quickly are not just those you’d expect.
“Everyone thinks it’s the young, agile digital lovers, the digital natives. But we’ve seen great examples of customers in their 50s and 60s who get it – they get it because they see the e ciency.
“What we’re saying is that we’ll have a solution for any end of the market.
“Our focus is still unashamedly on trade, that’s the DNA of our business.
“But this doesn’t mean to say that di erent people don’t want to interact in di erent ways.”
20 NZHJ | AUGUST 2020
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