I think it is worth taking a minute here to look at what has been achieved in the last two years - particularly for those who are new to following Boots.
Two years ago, when I joined Boots, I said that there was plenty to do but few quick fixes. I knew I was taking charge of a great retail brand, operating in growth markets; but one where the retail operations had been underinvested.
Since then we have made significant progress in our ambition to make Boots more modern, competitive and efficient.
First what our customers have seen. We have cut our prices to ensure that we are offering value for money; we have invested in our stores by opening more space on the edge of town, extending our opening hours, modernising some stores and introducing new tills.
Behind the scenes we have re-engineered our supply chain, closed and moved manufacturing plants, introduced better-buying and revolutionised IT systems throughout the business. All this while removing a third of the jobs in our head office.
LINK: But that kind of change alone was not enough. We knew that there were some major decisions that had to be taken to allow us to reposition the Group for long term growth.
