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Upside Down Management and the High Street After the Pandemic David Scheeres
David.Scheeres@aspen-waite.co.uk
There is no doubt that the Covid-19 Pandemic or at least the lockdowns or quarantines enforced globally by central governments has accelerated a change in consumer habits that was rapidly happening anyway. I have a lot of time for Sir John Timpson, the owner of the shoe repair firm Timpson’s because he is both a traditionalist and yet disruptive. His success has been brought about by recognising change but amalgamating them with great customer service, staff ownership of values and an appreciation of their customers who keep them employed. His foresight in acknowledging the demise of the high street led him to a path in which he “piggy backed” traffic into his shops by launching a new campaign to follow the new location of his customers. Where was that? At the
supermarkets of course! The supermarkets provide a “one stop shop” for many things and the demise of the high street was largely brought about by supermarkets with easy parking, fuel stations and loss leading products to attract consumers. Coupled with an advance in the accessibility and choice of online shopping, the high street began to lose its appeal. Sir John recognised this and opened forty branches at supermarkets and expanded services to include dry cleaning, tailoring operations and other repairs.
Management” that I would recommend.
We’ll move on later to the future of the High Street but first I will review Timpson’s philosophy and fundamental business model. The business model is called upside down management, coined by Sir John many years ago. In fact, he wrote a book called “Upside Down
Timpson carries out no marketing, advertising or public relations, hires no management consultants and has no budgets and yet has a turnover and profitability that is the envy of many, and make no mistake, Timpson understands that turnover is vanity and profit is sanity!
What drove Timpson to Upside Down Management was the realisation that the only means to successfully compete with a well-capitalised competitor in a shrinking market was superior customer service. To get there, he theorised that he had to “give branch managers authority and trust them to get on with it.” In essence, customers come first, staff second and management last!
