Given that the Morrisons takeover has now been approved and Boots endgame is fast approaching, it is perhaps time to acknowledge the different business models at play when managing UK major customers...
UK retailers now comprise two PLCs, two in Private Equity ownership, one Partnership, a Co-operative, and a strong probability that Boots will end up in PE hands, it seems logical that we should acknowledge that these fundamentally different business models should each be handled differently…
Given that they have different approaches to what success looks like, it seems natural that understanding their key drivers in the new norm and adjusting our approach to meeting those needs may help us gain a competitive advantage over our rivals that simply offer a ‘same size fits all’ option.
Their different business models cause retailers to have different business needs, to hear and assess our offerings from different perspectives, to have differing opinions re fair share, but more importantly, they are driven to behave differently based on the extent to which they perceive their needs are being met. Based upon the extent of these differences, making them an offer-in-common patently misses a trick in normal times. Making the same mistake in times unprecedented could be unrecoverable…
Clearly, differentiating these business models can help. Essentially there are five traditional retail business models operating in the UK (DTC and pureplay online are also present but will best be dealt with in a future NamNews article). These business models are PLC, Private Equity, Co-operative, Partnership and Private Company:
Public Limited Company (PLC)
Have shares traded on the stock market i.e. Tesco and Sainsbury’s. They are driven by Price to Earnings ratio (P/E), Share Price, in turn driven by Return On Capital Employed. ROCE is a multiple of Net Profit BT/Sales and Sales/Capital Employed i.e. Stockturn. They are also very focused on minimising Corporation Tax (For a detailed treatment of ROCE, see Finance in major customer management In other words, as you know, a PLC can be a low margin, fast rotation business or a high margin, slow rotation business. All that matters is the combination of margin and speed of rotation in producing an acceptable ROCE.
In selling to a PLC, it is worth keeping in mind that they are interested in what you do to improve their P&L i.e. Increase their sales, and reduce operational costs – in fact, reduce their business costs (including credit period) to improve their NPBT. They rely on small, frequent and accurate deliveries. They are obviously interested in your direct trade investment and increasingly interested in your use of retail media. In fact, retail media’s precision, impact and productivity at the point of purchase can make your retail media spend act in both your interests (See Alexander Knapman’s Retail Media summary on page 3). The PLC retailer obviously regards your brand as a means of attracting your consumer to the aisle to be confronted by their better-priced own-label equivalent. However, they also see your need to optimise your use of their retail media.
A PLC retailer operates entirely differently to a PE-retailer…
Private Equity Owned Retailer: i.e. Morrisons, Asda, Boots.
They are driven by Earnings Before Interest, Depreciation and Amortisation i.e. EBITDA. Think typical P&L starting with sales, then come the direct expenses (i.e. costs of generating sales, manufacturing/buying goods followed by sales and administration expenses. Then comes the EBITDA line, below which are Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortisation. Anything below the EBITDA line does not affect the valuation of the business, providing sufficient cash is generated to meet interest payments.
PE owners are less driven by net profit before tax because the nature of the business model means that the high cost of borrowing to buy the company results in little or no corporation tax being paid in the typically 5 to 7 years of PE ownership. Moreover, the retail management team are usually heavily incentivised to ensure a 100% focus on the EBITDA driver. A UK PE-retailer is typically valued at 10x EBITDA in the open market (other industries/sectors have different multiples of EBITDA). In other words, a PE retailer wants you to help reduce operational costs and simplify their processes whilst driving sales. Like PLCs, they can see brands as a means of drawing shoppers into the aisle to
be confronted by a better own-label offer. Following takeover, they will inevitably take steps such as selling off as many shops as possible, and leasing back those that are or can be made more profitable.
Hopefully, it can be seen that a PE-retailer is run very differently [See The-implications-of-private-equity-takeover-of-a-mult ]from a PLC retailer, but both see business through a strictly financial lens…
Co-operative Retailing:
As you know, Co-operatives arose in response to a fundamental need in the community. The core values that underpin the co-operative model – self-help, democracy, equality, equity and solidarity – guide the way decisions are reached. Ideally, this means that the Co-op will buy to serve the needs of their members and the interests of their community will be factored into their business decisions. Moreover, their one-member, one-vote rule means that the interests of the largest shareholders do not trump the rest. This group emphasis has caused them to appear less efficient than ‘normal’ retailers in the past, but they have evolved a sustainable model that generates sufficient profit to survive and grow in the current climate. Their emphasis on bottom-line impact tends to be less overt, and cash is used more as a measure of productivity than an end in itself.
The Co-op is thereby radically different to a PLC and a PE retailer and needs to be treated accordingly, if only to spread your business risk over the various routes to consumer…
Partnership Retailing: i.e. Waitrose
The John Lewis Partnership is a 100-year-old model and began as an experiment to find a better way of doing business by including staff in decision making on how the business would be run. The principles for how the company should operate were set out, along with a written constitution to help Partners understand their rights and responsibilities as co-owners.
The founders wanted to create a way of doing business that was both commercial, allowing it to move quickly and stay ahead in a highly-competitive industry, and democratic, giving every Partner a voice in the business they co-own. Their profit-sharing scheme can help partners focus on goals in common but given that profit-share is a significant part of their remuneration package, then issues can arise at times of low profitability when partner share is reduced.
Moreover, in a rapidly changing retail environment, the mix of retail format i.e. combination of department store and food retailing can cause difficulties in shifting gear. Suppliers have to sell to Waitrose in ways that acknowledge the influence of department store thinking and can accommodate the inefficiencies of combined distribution in terms of out-of-stocks.
Suppliers have to factor the high level of shopfloor partner involvement and their sense of ownership into business strategies, whilst allowing for potential dilution of morale when profits are not deliverable, factors that are not often present in PLC and PE-retailer relationships…
Privately Owned Limited Company: i.e. Aldi
Think Morrisons in Ken Morrisons’ day before going public i.e. little or no borrowing, a focus on minimising tax, simplicity of execution and limited frills, and a straightforward, no-nonsense offering representing good value for money…
In essence, Aldi simply fitted into the model that Morrisons could have become. The key advantages of the private company model include being able to act without having to have the approval of outside shareholders. That said, survival in the current climate means being able to generate an acceptable ROCE, capital rotation and a net profit before tax. Big ideas cannot be financed if internal funds are insufficient, thus limiting expansion. Negotiations, usually with owners of the business can be tough, and are usually finance-based and often need to deliver demonstrable value for money. Thus it can be seen that privately-owned retailers are different to Partnerships, Co-ops, PE-retailers, and PLCs…
It is important, and in the current climate vital, that suppliers treat all these models differently, using an approach that acknowledges these differences in business needs, objectives, and what good looks like, in order to ensure that what they hear from your proposals resonates with their financial aspirations and delivers accordingly.
All else is detail…
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