What would be the implications of Focus Wickes moving to say 50 per cent own-label merchandise within the next year from the viewpoints of:

● end-customers;

● sales staff;

● suppliers?

Mergers may bring long-term business benefits, but short-term there are problems with disparate IT systems and corporate culture. For Focus Wickes, with three major mergers in five years, streamlining supplier relations is a key priority – which is where the system termed ‘Eqos’ that was specifically produced for this task helped.
Giving them the tools Focus Wickes labelled its new supplier relationship initiative ‘Fusion’. Over a frantic first five years the DIY chain grew dramatically, acquiring Do It All in 1998 and both Great Mills and Wickes in 2000, to become the UK’s second largest home improvements chain. Very soon there were more than 270 Focus outlets, including a dozen or so trading under the discount ‘No Frills’ fascia, and some 161 Wickes stores.
‘Fusing’ the inevitable disparate IT systems resulting from such expansion was a major consideration and problem for the company. So, too, was the need to build a coherent corporate culture that melded good supplier relations with a customer-centric strategy. ‘We have seen something of a cultural revolution in the past few years,’ stated Justin Farrington-Smith, trading director for the Focus division. ‘We’re now giving much greater emphasis to understanding customer needs and also working more closely with suppliers.’
Wickes had been an early enthusiast for collaborative working.
Around 98 per cent of Wickes’ product assortment is own-label, so the company has always tended to work very closely with suppliers to develop new lines and share sales forecasts. What it wanted from a new system was better communications to help cut lead times and improve ‘on-shelf ’ availability, as well as something that could help suppliers become more involved in assortment planning and ranging, as the group moved towards a more structured category management model.
Wickes decided to reorganise its business into three broad business units: ‘Trade’, ‘DIY & Garden’
and ‘Showroom’ – the sort of complete kitchens and bathrooms that tend to be delivered direct to customers. The aim was for the new integrated category teams, which made up the business units, to collaborate even more closely with suppliers. ‘We needed something that would be simple for our suppliers to use, easy to link into their own IT systems and would also give us more flexibility in reporting,’ stated Focus Wickes’ project manager.