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