Industry
Primary: Wholesale and Retail Trade
Key Contribution
Worked effectively alongside the functional area managers to effect change where necessary, support them in bringing more focus to their core competencies and delivering better results.
The Business
The business was one of Australasia’s largest mail order / catalogue companies operating in the apparel, footwear, and home and gifts markets.
The Challenge
The founding owners/directors made the decision to take a step back from being actively involved in the business and appointed a new Managing Director whom they backed to appoint a new management team consisting of General Managers Sales and Marketing, Merchandising/Buying and Finance and Operations.
The Assistance Required
The Managing Director was looking to appoint a General Manager Sales & Marketing with strong commercial and apparel experience who would assume responsibility for all of the functional areas (viz. Retail, Corporate Business to Business Sales, Contact Centre, Marketing and CRM and Forecasting) directly interfacing with the business’ customers.
The Approach
The Managing Director appointed a new, Auckland based General Manager Sales and Marketing with the requirement for significant and frequent time being spent in their regional head office working as part of the new management team and with the direct reports to deliver better performance and financial outcomes.
The Results Delivered
Key results delivered included:
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Contributing to the business’ strategic direction within the management team;
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Significantly strengthening the Sales and Marketing management team through the replacement of poorly performing Contact Centre and CRM and Forecasting Managers and the splitting of the Marketing Manager’s role into two positions (Catalogue Marketing and Customer and Brand);
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Increasing the level of commercial focus, measurement and reporting of key initiatives in all sales and marketing areas – in particular, Marketing and CRM and Forecasting;
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Opening two new retail stores, effectively increasing the net sales line for the retail business by more than 45% p.a., and establishing Outlet areas within some of the retail stores and a temporary presence in Dress-Smart Tawa to address the end of season stock clearance challenge the business faced;
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Successfully repositioning the Corporate business to focus on its core competency of smart casual apparel for small–medium sized multi-site businesses and materially increased net sales;
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Introducing an external contact centre “overflow” arrangement to enable the business to meet peak demand and thus customer service levels in the most cost-effective manner possible;
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Improving all KPI results in the Contact Centre;
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Increasing overall Group Net Sales and NPBT.
