Retail's Best Kept Secret

A CFO's guide to achieving sustainable profit improvement and greater transparency into their supply chain.

For the foreseeable future, revenues are not going to increase easily for UK Retailers. Deteriorating consumer confidence, in tandem with rising costs (reputational and financial) related to supply chain risks, has forced UK retailers to scrutinise every penny spent (more than ever before).

Research has shown that 66% of costs incurred by UK businesses are done so in their supply chains. However, as retailers look to maintain profits, minimise reputation damage and retain margins, this statistic is often ignored and the more common cost-cutting initiatives are pursued (such as reducing head count, closing stores, cutting budgets or engaging with low cost suppliers).

Our research found that many retailers' Senior Management teams gave their non-core (GNFR) supply chains little attention (in comparison) to other priorities, resulting in a general lack of awareness as to the importance and true value that better managed GNFR expenditure can deliver.

Thus a major opportunity lays relatively unknown and under-exploited for many UK retailers - that is, sustainable profit improvement AND greater transparency through better management of GNFR costs.

Highlights from the Whitepaper

• A case study on how a UK Retailer was able to achieve £80m in bankable savings
  
  
• Why GFR and GNFR need fundamentally different approaches
  
  
• The benefits of better managed GNFR and recommendations for driving maximum benefit out of this element of business spend
  
  
• An in-depth review and analysis of the UK Retail sector