ar11-lr-final

From 47 to 51
stores: we’re
counting and
we’re proud
‘Heart of the Office’
Great brands
Our performance and the strength of our foundations
allow us to step up our investment in growing and
optimising our footprint and modernising the exteriors
and interiors of our stores. We optimised our floor space
in three stores to increase our return on investment.
Through the period, we opened four new stores in Kerikeri,
Riccarton, Levin and Gisborne allowing us to increase our
scale and reach.
In the 2010 financial year, every store exterior was
modernised. Pleasingly, in 2011 we drove a programme
to refresh and improve our customers and Team Members’
experience inside our stores. We are proud of every store
as a result of an extensive investment in new display
systems, signage and a new overall improved in-store
aesthetic with better navigation.
Our long-term investment in store footprint growth will
continue as we are determined to achieve a more
comprehensive national coverage and to drive sales growth.
We are planning to invest in nine further stores over the
next three to five years and are pleased with the progress
we are making on our pipeline of sites.
Low prices
Store-within-a-store
Working smarter
We know we have the right people in the right jobs,
doing the right things. They are also highly engaged
so we know they are more productive, more customer
focused, safer and less likely to leave. Our team
recorded another great engagement score as
measured each July by the JRA Best Workplaces
survey. This was an outstanding achievement building
on the award-winning result of last year. In November
2010, our performance was acknowledged by the
JRA Best Workplaces awards for two categories
– the ‘Most Improved Award’ recognising the biggest
lift in engagement by all entrant companies, and
‘Best Large Workplace’. Our team was pleased with
this external recognition of what they already know
– we have strong leadership, rewarding careers and
offer great training and development opportunities.
The investment in building the capability of the
organisation paid dividends this year when a
change in our structure resulted in all bar one
executive-level placements being made from within
our existing team, with most of their roles then filled
from our talent pipeline.
During the year, we strengthened our ‘Working Smarter’
model throughout our store network and implemented
our new ‘Merchandise Way of Working’ to build
capability and agility within that function. New
leadership and management capability training was
made available for our Store Managers and a Retail
Learning Pathway is now in place with a framework of
learning and development opportunities for all roles in
our stores.
Following the decision to use a values-based approach to
recruitment, we centralised our model and are pleased
with the cost reductions and what we believe are better
team placements being made into the business.
We are committed to our ongoing investment in our
people’s performance and we are pleased with the
resulting continuous improvement we are seeing
in our business.
Increasing our online
presence and the
breadth and depth
of our products and
promotions available
online will continue as
a strong support to
our store network.
Positioned to follow our customers
Our customers are conducting research before they
come in-store and, increasingly, they are purchasing
online as they meet the pressures of their own busy lives.
To help them we have improved the speed, accessibility
and navigation of our online store. Additionally, in just
12 months, we built our presence on Facebook with
our customers engaging with us on a frequent basis
– we now have in excess of 8,000 Facebook fans.
Canterbury
The devastating earthquakes in Canterbury took a toll on
our customers, our team and the community. We extend
our sympathy to everyone who has been impacted over the
last 12 months. Whilst all stores returned to operating very
quickly after the September and December quakes, the
third big quake in February resulted in the closure of the
South City store. At the time of this report going to print,
the store remains closed. All of our Team Members from
this store are currently redeployed in roles at other stores
and will return to South City when it is reopened.
Standing by our communities
We are proud of the support we provide each year to
many charitable groups throughout New Zealand – it’s
simply the right thing to do. In a challenging recessionary
year when many charitable groups were seeking new
supporters, we focused our efforts and are now proudly
supporting more charitable organisations at a nationwide
level than ever before.
The addition of the World Vision 40 Hour Famine and a
Salvation Army programme that provides basic stationery
requirements to Kiwi children at the start of the school year
gives us a family of charities that provide youth a ‘hand up’
on their life journeys.
We proudly continue our association with First Foundation
and Making it on My Own (MIOMO): two proven groups
providing a ‘hand up’ for youth in the community.
During the year, we introduced ‘Support Your Schools’, a
reward system for schools based on our BlueBiz rewards
for business account holders. ‘Support Your Schools’
allows our customers’ to earn BlueBiz rewards points on
their purchases – they then donate their reward points to
schools of their choice. More than 330,000 BlueBiz rewards
have been raised, with 529 schools benefiting in the six
months from the launch of the scheme. Schools have
redeemed points on much-needed stationery, technology,
sports equipment and more.
To our team
We are proud of many of our achievements this year – our
team is focused and there has been accelerated progress
on our growth platforms. Our team in Canterbury, despite
the most trying of times, achieved some of the highest
engagement scores of the organisation. I would like to thank
every single Team Member nationwide for your efforts in 2011.
Tania Benyon
Chief Operating Officer
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WAREHOUSE STATIONERY 26
WAREHOUSE SECTION STATIONERY TITLE 27