After a challenging 2019, Norman Broadbent’s Consumer, Leisure & Retail Practice has paused to look back at 2019, and then ahead to 2020. It seems that with every passing year, the Consumer & Retail landscape becomes more turbulent and more volatile. Indeed, recently released research attests to this, with Retail CEOs seeing their highest turnover for 7 years and high-profile administrations including Mothercare, Debenhams and Bonmarche in 2019. CEOs and business leaders frequently attest to experiencing “a very tough environment”, with some even describing it as the toughest climate they’ve encountered. On analysing Christmas trading however, there are some bright spots. As expected these include pureplay retailers such as ASOS and Boohoo, but also older multichannel businesses such as Dunelm, Greggs and Lidl, who saw increased like-for-like sales growth of 5 – 11% during recent Christmas trading, and strong results more generally through the year.
So we asked ourselves “What do these very different businesses have in common that might play a part in their trading success?”
Norman Broadbent plc (LON:NBB) is a leading Professional Services firm offering five interrelated Talent Acquisition & Advisory Services: Board & Leadership/Executive Search, Senior Interim Management, Research & Insight, Leadership Consulting & Assessment, and executive level Recruitment Solutions.