David Jones has clearly been successful – and he remained as strategic leader. But: could a case be made for ensuring that he had a ‘partner’ with a greater willingness to take risks and who would deliberately seek to stretch the organization more?

In 1999 Internet selling was added to the Next Directory operations; and in 2001 flowers were added to the Internet product range.

Next began to experiment with a new larger store format. It was successful and several more have been opened. At the same time some of the smallest stores have been closed down. As a result the average store size has gradually increased from 5000 to 7000 square feet.

David Jones became Executive Chairman in 2002 and Simon Wolfson (from a family of renowned retailers linked previously to Great Universal Stores) was appointed as CEO in his place. The first true overseas branch of Next was opened in Denmark in 2004; previously Next had operated through franchises. The company was also offering call centre service facilities to customers such as British Gas through its Ventura subsidiary.

Between 2002/3 and 2003/4 the company was clearly growing. UK Retail now accounted for some 72 per cent of turnover and profits. The Next Directory (21 per cent), Ventura (5 per cent) and overseas franchises made up the rest.