What Matters Doesn’t Change John Lewis: Being The Retail Revolution
Paul Coby
IT Director, John Lewis
17th January 2016
Paul Coby
Non Exec
Director
P&O Ferries
UK Sea Routes
Turnover £600m
Employees 1,100
IT Director
John Lewis
Retail
Turnover £3.5bn
Employees
30,000
Non Exec Director
SITA
Global Air Transport
IT and Services
Turnover $1.55bn
Employees 4,500
Non Exec
Director
Pets At Home
Pet and Vets
Turnover £600m
Employees 6,000
What Am I Going To Talk About?
Introduce John Lewis
What’s Changing?
Omni-Channel Shopping Revolution
What has John Lewis learned?
Trade over Peak
Questions
150+ years of John Lewis
• The John Lewis Partnership is the UK's
largest example of worker co-ownership
– over 91,000 Partners own the
business
• John Lewis is the UK’s largest
department store group with 46 shops
across the UK
• 32 full department stores
• 12 John Lewis at home
Underpinned by Principle One
The Partnership’s ultimate purpose is the happiness of all
its members, through their worthwhile and satisfying
employment in a successful business.
Because the Partnership is owned in trust for its
members, they share the responsibilities of ownership as
well as its rewards – profit, knowledge and power.
Christmas adverts – harness the power of the
brand
The Third Industrial Revolution – The Digital
Revolution
The Customer Journey Used to be Simple
Visit store
Purchase products
Use product
Want Product
In omni-channel everything is much more
complicated
Research
products
View
videos
Watch
adverts
Read
reviews
Visit
retail
website
Compare
prices
Visit
store
Purchase
products
Products
Delivered
Click and
collect
Take
Pictures /
videos
Use
product
Share
Review
Want
Product
Technology is at the heart of John Lewis
11
1 Foundations
2 Customer and
Partner facing
projects
3 Retail
innovation
Website underpinned by Oracle Commerce
platform
Infrastructure
Present day Oracle
Commerce 9
Most change all
the way through
the stack = slow
Presentation & Content layer
Accessible data
Ecommerce logic
Supported by leading search
technology Oracle Endeca
- Increased Revenue
- Improved user experience
- Increased search quality
- Foundations for future
development
- No adverse impact to SEO equity
Platform refresh project – Oracle Commerce
11.4
Presentation & Content layer
Accessible data
Ecommerce logic
FUTURE
Oracle
Commerce 11.4
Infrastructure
d
d
d
d Hi-frequency
change
enabled
John Lewis Stores Inspire Omni Channel
Shopping Full Line
Department Stores
Small Full Line Department Stores
At Home Stores Click &
Commute
You can’t do the front-end without sorting the back-
end
Transforming our Supply Chain with Oracle
Phase 1 includes the delivery of a new Production
Information Management tool alongside the core Oracle
Retail suite of products.
Phases 2 & 3 build on this to deliver the full supply-chain
visibility of stock and introduce new data insight tools
The aim of the Pioneer Programme is to implement new systems
and processes for end-to-end stock management across the John
Lewis supply chain.
From item creation, ordering from suppliers, through
to branch replenishment
Significant investment is underway in underpinning
technology
Make it easy for customers to shop across all channels
Innovation is in our DNA
John Lewis is famous for innovative design – of products, proposition and
business model
I wanted to replicate this for
IT…
Internal Innovation – Room Y
JLAB – our Technology Incubator
My inspiration was thinking ‘what would our
founder Spedan Lewis do?’
We live in an exciting time when technology
innovation is changing how we all live, work, and
have fun
The objectives of JLAB are:
1. Find a great product to transform the
shopping experience customers
2. Make a worthwhile investment
3. Help develop the UK start-up sector
4. Build companies that share our values
2015 JLAB Finalists
An app that allows consumers to control all of their
smart home devices through a phone, tablet or
laptop
A solar-powered cover for iPhone users
A camera device that replaces the traditional
peephole via their smartphone
A digital queue management solution
The next generation of coffee shops and cafes
22
1 Foundations
2 Customer and
Partner facing
projects
3 Retail
innovation
What John Lewis understands
INSIGHT 1: Omni channel shopping needs to be seamless
and frictionless across channels – we believe in ‘Bricks and
Clicks’
INSIGHT 2: Pretty front-ends online and on mobile are
useless without back-end technology and supply chain
excellence
INSIGHT 3: You have to manage the whole business as a
single entity not as competing channels since that's how
customers see us
INSIGHT 4: Digital driven innovation matters in a world being
changed by technology
What John Lewis understands
INSIGHT 5: Christmas is always critical to our success
and how customers shop over this peak period has
changed
RECORD SALES DESPITE WARM WEATHER
Results over the critical trading period
John Lewis achieved another very
strong sales performance with
impressive growth across all three
categories of Fashion, Home and
Technology.
This year we saw three peaks
- Black Friday Week
- Christmas
- Clearance
First class operational performance
Market beating sales for 7th year
running
Six Weeks Ending Saturday 2nd January
2016
What really matters, still matters in a world being
changed by technology
Never knowingly undersold since 1925
What Matters Doesn’t Change John Lewis: Being The Retail Revolution
Paul Coby
IT Director, John Lewis
17th January 2016