The young, lazy? Nonsense – just look at all the DIY videos on YouTube
The French boss transforming B&Q debunks a retail myth
VERONIQUE Laury speaks with refreshing candour about the task facing her and her retail rivals.
Six months into a year that threatens to change the retail sector forever, Laury, who runs B&Q owner Kingfisher, says store bosses aren’t facing up to the seismic shift triggered by the internet.
‘Most retailers are still completely underestimating the scale of this change,’ says the 53-year-old French executive.
Laury, whose group operates in ten European countries with 1,300 stores, adds chillingly: ‘We sort of knew that was coming. But I don’t think anyone knew that it was going to be so harsh so soon. It’s only just getting started.’
The sweeping change has already left closest rival Homebase on the brink. Meanwhile, big retail groups have launched audacious plans to protect profits, with Sainsbury’s merger with Asda and Tesco’s partnership with French hypermarket giant Carrefour both designed to hammer suppliers.
But Laury says size is not the answer and that change has to be ‘more fundamental’. Meeting on a blisteringly hot day at the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show for a rare interview, it’s hard to be pessimistic. ‘Today is a good day. But I have some less good days,’ she laughs.
Laury says she was ‘p **** d off’ when she became boss because assumptions people were making didn’t add up – what she calls the ‘reality principle’. She is adamant, after extensive research, that younger customers are not the inept and lazy types that some among the older generations like to think.
‘It’s a myth – not true at all. They want to have a go but they haven’t been taught by their parents. They just need more support to learn skills,’ she says, pointing out some of YouTube’s most-watched videos are for DIY jobs. while ‘home improvement’ and ‘home decor’ are among Instagram’s most searched-for terms. She accepts that young people are finding it difficult to get on the housing ladder. But she says: ‘To be fair they are probably more agile to learn than the older generation – searching for the answers from a young age is common for them.’
Similarly, she says the ‘Do-It-ForMe’ customer is a small minority.
‘It is a question of money. Are you telling me the most successful retailers are the low-priced retailers like B&M or Aldi and Lidl, and at the same time people are going to have tradesmen doing everything for them? Are you kidding?’
B&Q has a stand at the show that feels like an idyll, even among stiff competition. It includes a maze of patio tiles and flowers, as well as a metal B&Q shed with a woodframed hole cut in the side to create a coffee bar. ‘You just need a saw to cut the hole and this is wood from the shop. A good DIY-er can do this pretty easily,’ says the 53year-old DIY industry veteran with an insistent Gallic tone.
It is all designed to inspire visitors to imagine what they can achieve with a few B&Q products, and very much part of Laury’s vision for the future in which B&Q provides more help and ideas.
‘No one has the magic formula. But we have almost started earlier than most retailers and the stores are going to be different,’ she says.
She is now halfway through a five-year transformation programme, which promises to add £500million to group profits by 2021. So far most of the changes have happened behind the scenes – through the creation of one buying office and a plan to make B&Q more technologically advanced. Laury has also closed 65 stores, stores, unified buying to include 40 per cent of products so far – from virtually none two years ago – and introduced a one-hour click-andcollect service, which is possible thanks to a massive systems overhaul and expertise from sister chain Screwfix. She is now turning her attention to stores. New bathroom displays, once spread over large areas, reflect the smaller rooms most houses actually have with product ranges designed for tighter spaces such as flattened cupboards to squeeze behind the bathroom doors.
What she wants to do next is provide more advice and inspiration – online and in store – to prevent so many projects suffering from a lack of skills or ideas.
‘People tell us ‘it’s a nightmare,’ she says, adding that both time and money is often wasted. You start full of energy; you say, “I’m going to do this,” and then people stop and say, “You know what, it’s so complicated”,’ adding that 37 per cent of people give up bathroom makeovers early in the process. The plan over the next two years is to coach and inspire.
‘What customers are looking for is someone who helps them make the right choice. A point of view about what they should do. This is what we’ve started – but it is a journey for us.’
Laury, who previously worked at French DIY retailer Leroy Merlin before joining Kingfisher in 2003, sees no contradiction with a woman at the top of a DIY group, dismissing such prejudices to history.
It is the only FTSE100 firm with a female chief executive and chief financial officer, Karen Witts.
Laury says: ‘It’s not about women versus men. The world is half women. So companies should be too. You need to keep that pressure because part of this is about women limiting themselves – I know what I’m talking about, because I’ve coached for quite a while. You need to show women on the shop floor that it is possible.’
A former politics graduate, she is also fascinated by Brexit, which is the other headache for businesses right now. ‘When it [the Referendum vote] happened it was a big topic, everybody [in Europe] was talking about it. Actually, now no one is talking about it,’ she says.
France has societal change with Macron and ‘Germany, they have other problems’. She adds: ‘The rest of the world doesn’t care about it any more. It has become a UK problem. Which is not good news for the UK in my view.’
What customers are looking for is someone who helps them make the right choice