Stuart Rose is an extremely arrogant man, but the awful appointment was Marc Bolland who was a disaster for M&S. They obsessed over high street and their famed unmatchable high street covenants. Only any good if shoppers are still going there. A bit of a problem if they're not. Rose might have been asleep at the wheel towards the end, but Bolland was driving on the wrong side of the road.
Bolland focused everything on non food with a plethora of inappropriate brands and sub brands that confused.
He focused on international expansion, while limiting the expansion of Simply Food and dismissing Online as he had done at Morrisons before that. The bloke was a disaster.
So the competitive advantage and opportunity they had was food and he prioritised away.
The need to invest in UK online and supply chain just to play catch up was obvious, yet he didn't, until too little too late and they had horrendous problems with supply chain and execution.
The man they should have empowered was Roger Whiteside who set up Simply Food and co-started Ocado. He ran Food for them.
He left on not getting the top job, did well at Punch for their shareholders and personally got out right at the right time.
What he has done at Greggs is absolutely brilliant. He's a tough man but outstanding.
M&S Food is excellent and is generally significantly superior. In my opinion it is worth the premium. We would buy lots more and more regularly if it wasn't so inconvenient. The Ocado link up is smart.
The only advantage Waitrose has is it is full service Grocery and you can get strong brands too.
I'd never shop at Waitrose full service, I'd get the good stuff always at Marks' and everyday stuff where it was cheapest and most convenient.
Store location for the Food offering will be key and managed in conjunction with Ocado expansion.
I'm optimistic for them with Food, because nobody touches them in terms of major stores.
The Clothes and Home ranges have just lost relevance. It will take some getting back, but without the margin that comes from their clothes they can't justify the size of store, hence the re-positioning.
Their buying has been pitiful, regularly seeing them advertise product on TV for weeks that is available in store for days because they've got their buying and stock holding wrong. Whilst the need for massive sales rises when they get things badly wrong like deciding old men should all wear skinny jeans.
Their Gross margin % on Non Food is still much much higher that on their Food and they now do twice the business on Food from a fraction of the floorspace, (but with higher labour costs, in part because of a poor supply chain).
They have to do really well on Food to counter the Non Food decline. That makes Bolland's lethargy on Food and Simply Food all the more stupid.
They've done well with Food, but cautiously, rather than triumphantly as they could have.
Steve Rowe isn't in Roger Whiteside's league. Wrong guy.
