Rioting a New Chapter for UK Retail
Posted by Chris Gayner on Fri, Aug 12, 2011 @ 08:00 AM
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If the past 18 months have not been hard enough for UK retailers, this last week of rioting and looting has added insult to injury.
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Although the UK Government has set up a £20m relief fund to help retailers 'get back on their feet', some feel this is not enough particularly given August’s significantly reduced holiday trading period.
British Retail Consortium director general, Stephen Robertson, said "Our biggest fear is that otherwise successful retailers are pushed into insolvency by the events of this week. The retail sector has been battling difficult trading conditions for much of this year and sadly for some shops these attacks will be the final straw. Even where shops do manage to stay in business it is likely not all jobs will survive."
It has been estimated that around 48,000 of the 476,000 retail outlets in the UK were impacted either directly or indirectly through lost traffic coming through the stores.
Procurement as a leader during times of disaster
Briefly cast your minds back to the dark, cold, wintery week leading up to Christmas in 2010. UK airports, as a result of poor contingency planning (or rather from running such lean operations) failed to sufficiently handle the bout of bad weather which saw thousands of travellers having to delay their holidays.
Talking with the head of procurement from a major airport during the crisis, procurement were asked to support on-ground staff and the wider business - ensuring front end (airports) were stocked with the necessary equipment to effectively cater for the increasingly impatient travellers.
Not only were the procurement team responding to the plethora of demands coming through (for things like blankets, food, salt etc) BUT they were also going back to the various teams with suggestions and alternative solutions to the various situations that were cropping up. As a result procurement created a perception of being ‘useful’ outside of just providing year-on-year savings back to the business – breaking the mould and being seen as a value adding operation to multiple stakeholders.
The similarities between the riots and the above example are vast. The question is, how can procurement step up and help affected retailers?
References: The Guardian