Eleanor Cooksey

The media is having a field day working out ‘What’s the Matter with Tesco’ since it announced a drop in its profits for the first time in 20 years.  There’s lots of chatter about how the in-store experience is not great compared to other supermarkets who have upped their game, and that people are fed up with Tesco being the big bad bully. The most interesting comment I came across was from Tim Lang, professor of food policy at City University, in a piece in the Guardian:

They’ve [Tesco] all gone for a ruthless exploitation of their gatekeeper role in the food system but they don’t produce food. They merely source and process and deliver to consumers. This is a high energy model and despite the much-wanted efficiencies of the retail markets this is actually a hugely inefficient and very risky corporate strategy of building mass markets around an oil-based food economy. Oil is literally driving people to the shop and all the wagons up and down the motorways. With oil prices being squeezed, the biggest company is now getting kebabed on the power of its own making.

I guess I had never really thought about what Tesco was doing in that way, but it makes sense. It is operating as a huge machine focused on improving efficiencies with lots of power but little real passion.

I should confess I am pretty loyal Tesco shopper. I am not bothered by any shortcomings in the stores as I order my groceries online and have found that to work well. My issues stem from a recent experience with Tesco Direct. All I wanted to do was buy a watch but several weeks later, and after many interactions with their staff instore and on the phone, I am still without a watch but a fiver better-off.

How did this happen? Firstly, I chose a watch, ordered it online and then picked it up some 24 hours later from a local store. All fine so far, but now I had my first problem – the watch didn’t actually work. It was a cheap watch (£7.50), but that doesn’t mean it is acceptable for it to fail to function from the outset!

Back at home, I rang up the call centre to complain. The agent apologised and quickly organised for me to have £5 credit, in addition to being refunded the amount the watch cost when I returned it at the store.

Once there, I thought I would try to order another one but the staff there couldn’t do this for me. So I went back home to ring up and order a new watch. Again, within 24 hours, I got an email to confirm the new watch was ready for pick up at the store. Full of hope, I cycled down the long hill to reach my local store to find that the watch wasn’t actually there. The email had been automatically generated and did not take into account no deliveries would happen on a bank holiday. I was very cross as I cycled back up the hill and got my husband to make a detour on his way home from work to pick up the watch when it did finally arrive.

I opened the second watch – to my astonishment, this one did not work either.

I rang the call centre full of fury. I am afraid the end of the story is an anti-climax but perhaps symptomatic of Tesco’s issues. The concession I obtained was that I would be refunded in full without having to return the dodgy watch to the store. I had already been given £5, and the watch itself only cost £7.50  - that’s the problem with having cheap goods – it limits how much you can invest in placating the customer when things go wrong.

End of the story: I can’t face trying to get another watch – it’s my phone clock for me now. Sorry if I’m late!

I’ve been doing some research on different corporates and the one that intrigued me most was Nike. I must confess I have become a bit of a fan as a result. In reading about their recent product launches, I came across Flyknit technology which produces a ‘shoe-cum-sock’. The trainer is made with the bare minimum amount of material and seems to be mostly woven to create an upper part of the shoe which is virtually seamless.

Nike’s trying to recreate the sensation of running with no shoe at all – but this is no emperor’s new clothes. There are several reasons why Flyknit  should mean gold stars for Nike.

1. The resulting trainer is lighter – it weighs 160g which is about the same as a large apple. Being lighter has many advantages – not simply for the runner:  it means it costs less to transport; and that it using less material.
2. It requires only two pieces to be sown, compared to the 38 for another popular model (the Air Pegasus 28). This means it takes less time to make and requires less labour.
3. The knock-on of the point 2 is that the human effort required to create the shoe has been considerably reduced – so much so that Nike could make the shoe anywhere in the world rather than having to go to places where labour rates are cheap. With one innovative swoosh it could do away with that reliance on factories which have been such a thorn in its side for a long time.

But it does make me wonder – what will those workers in the factories that are no longer sewing Nike trainers do instead? It comes back to that old conundrum – is a bad job better than no job at all? Time for more innovation…

Which competitive advantages have staying power? What skills matter most? How can you weigh up risk and opportunity when the fundamentals of your business may change overnight?

These questions appear in a recent Fast Company article about Generation Flux – ‘The Pioneers Of The New (And Chaotic) Frontier Of Business’. The piece includes snapshot of individuals who fit the this pioneer profile – people such as DJ Patil, 37 who has been all of the following: researcher at Los Alamos; Defense Department fellow; virtual librarian for Iraq; web-security architect for eBay; head of data team at LinkedIn, where his team created People You May Know.

The article then goes on to tell us:

Nuke Nostalgia. If ambiguity is high and adaptability is required, then you simply can’t afford to be sentimental about the past. Future-focus is a signature trait of Generation Flux. It is also an imperative for businesses: Trying to replicate what worked yesterday only leaves you vulnerable.

As someone who worked for the same company for ten years, I must confess I am feeling a little vulnerable. And I am not so keen on this emphasis on constant flitting between jobs – another way of describing this flexibility is to say that it provides only a shallow understanding of what a position requires. And what about the time it takes to build trust between teams?

Though it is undeniable the Pioneers in the article are very talented and high achieving, it is possible to find other models of success. They are based on people who have worked at the same company for years, slowly but surely working their way up to get to grips what the place where they work is really about. An obvious example is Terry Leahy, who joined Tesco in 1979 and spent 14 years as chief executive. In Jim Collins’ ‘Good to Great’, it is leaders who manifest personal humility and who understand their success is contingent on the many but minor accomplishments of others that build companies with the best financial performances.

To take a culinary metaphor, I am thinking of a marinade – a chance to soak up the culture and values of a place. The Pioneer model is more akin to stir-fry  – throwing different people and skills together to create something fresh and different. To be fair, there is a risk inherent in the ‘stuck it and stay’ approach – namely that the employee does not marinade but stews, becoming soggy and without ‘spark as a result.

There is a third way which takes something from both. It’s when people stay within the same company but change roles. It’s something that happened at Nike during Phil Knight’s reign as CEO – apparently he liked to shuffle people around, keeping them on their toes.

As Knight moved executives here and there, someone who was a boss one day could find himself a subordinate to his former charges the next. Rotating titles meant there might be half-a-dozen people in the company who had served in any one position, giving them license to critique the performance of the newcomer. In this setup employees learn quickly that the only way to get things done is to come up with ideas and build alliances. Brashly making demands won’t get you far.

And what of the freelancer – well – I think they are more like an ingredient which is added in and needs to work well in any corporate cuisine – versatility will be critical. Sorry – the first thing that comes to mind is Quorn, which as the website itself says, is ‘many things to many people’.

Ever written the word ‘confused’, ‘secretive’ or ‘angry’ in a work email? Watch out – as someone might think you are on the cusp of plotting some dastardly scheme according to a recent article in the Economist.

The article describes how certain companies, in particular those at risk of employee fraud, are using specialist software to analyse the email communication of their staff and check for any suspicious activity. Apparently, using some of the above words would suggest an employee who is unhappy and worth keeping an eye on. Other give-aways include ‘call my mobile’ or ‘come by my office’ as they imply a desire to talk without being overheard; likewise be wary of words that suggest a personal relationship between an employee and an outsider (to potentially tip off) such as ‘beer’, ‘Facebook’ or ‘evening’.

All this surveillance sounds rather disturbing, and such concerns are picked up in the reader comments. The one I have included below also makes the point that governments as much as corporates are doing this kind of thing in America.

Why no mention of the core market for surveillance that has undoubtedly funded all this technology? Are corporate surveillance techniques not dwarfed by the American government’s own capabilities to mine all emails and phone calls along with a much deeper trove of personal, financial, and medical data? If our civil rights can be abrogated with impunity, a dictator can define his own “crooks,” much like a corporate titan can, to include any threat to his rule. The opinions of lawyers are malleable, as shown by Obama’s promise-breaking continuation of Bush and Cheney’s flouting of the constitution.

However, what intrigued me most in the article was the fact that the software must learn to adapt to the particular style of communication within a given sector.

For example, when software gurus at E&Y looked at e-mails among financial traders, their first impression was that “these guys’ hair is on fire,” recalls Vincent Walden, a fraudbuster at the firm. The e-mails were packed solid with swear-words. But this is how traders normally talk. It is when they go quiet that the software must prick up its electronic ears.

Imagine applying this software for another purpose – to evaluate the different literary styles across organisations and industries. The above suggests prose from financial traders would need to be x-rated; I wonder what would come up if we looked at doctors – perhaps not much better – or teachers – or saintly and demure librarians?!

Does it sound silly for me to say that I feel digitally excluded? Obviously, it does in some senses given that I have typed this blog post. So what do I mean?

Well, I am thinking about the times when my ‘digital activity’ has been compromised as I don’t have a printer and it is assumed that being online also means having a printer. No point in getting some handy vouchers – I can’t print them off. Or ticket bookings.

The time I got very cross was opening a new bank account with Santander. It was - admittedly – an eSaver account – but why should that mean I need a printer too? There was one particular form necessary to activate the account, which I was emailed through with the assumption that I could print out a hard copy, fill in and then post off. I went to the effort of ringing to see if I could get the form sent to me in the post, but the person I spoke to was adamant this was not an option. Grrrr…

As a counterpoint to this frustrating experience, let me describe a more positive interaction with Amazon. I wanted to return an item and followed the instructions on the site. I reached the stage when there was a form to print out - my heart sank - and then rose again when I read on. You could just send back the sales slip that came with the pack. Hooray – I could function!

Perhaps I am being rather silly and making a mountain out of a molehill but I really don’t want to be forced into getting a printer. They are ugly dark boxes (there is no beautifully-designed Apple-equivalent of a printer despite the claims of this article); producing extra paper doesn’t make sense in a world when we are trying to streamline the amount of stuff we use up; and given this, why can’t I use just a code or an email sent through on a smart phone instead?

But I do have an Achilles heel – I like my photos to be tangible – but that’s what Photobox is for!

One of my favourite ‘treats’ to myself is browsing in charity shops for books. It is very easy and cost-efficient to buy books on Amazon, but ultimately a functional experience; it is very lovely to smell new books in a bookshop, but I get distracted by the amount of tempting choice on offer and end up being unhappily overwhelmed, often walking out empty ended.

But in charity shops, who knows what you will find? To be fair, most of the books are pretty easy to dismiss: chick lit, Mills & Boon, Wilbur Smith, Dan Brown etc. You also tend to find more high brow books, which have clearly hit public consciousness and are guaranteed to appear in most charity shop shelves, often in multiple quantities. How often I have sighed to find yet another  ‘Curious Incident of a Dog’, ‘Atonement’, ‘Captain Corelli’, ‘White Teeth’, ‘Behind the Scenes at the Museum’ etc.

What I like best is to find something which I have sort of heard of but never got round to buying or getting from the library; or even better, something which intrigues me – an unexpected opportunity to be challenged and stretched.

Last week, I got a double-whammy of unexpected pleasures: I found a book which seemed unusual but interesting and, as I looked inside to get a better feel for the writing, I found the volume to be signed by the author (see picture below for proof!).

Looking at this signature made me wonder – how do you get signed copies of eBooks?

To be fair, some real books have less than real signatures – I am thinking of Margaret Atwood and her ingenious LongPen which enables her to sign a volume without actually being present in the room.

In doing some more research, I did come across a way in which it is possible for authors to make their mark on a virtual book. Using Kindlegraph as a platform, authors can send personalised inscriptions and signatures directly to the electronic reading devices of their fans.

But how about this for something even better? Stephen King gave people the opportunity to personalise a book with themselves. For the UK edition of ‘The Wind through the Keyhole’, you could upload your photo through the appropriate facebook page and there is a chance that you could appear on the back cover.

Nifty but I think I would prefer a signed copy!

Shops – are they in or out? It’s hard to tell. Forecasts for online shopping are pretty bullish, but then again, shiny stores appear here, there and everywhere. There was news the other week about Google getting in on the act.

Well, I must confess to being keen on online shopping as getting to places is not always straightforward when you don’t have a car, and then being in the shop can be pretty painful when you are restraining bored children.

However, last week, I tried a different type of shopping experience – without a shop but very much placed in the ‘real world’. A friend has recently become an ‘Usborne Book Lady’ and hosted her opening party at home. Now, I don’t want to get into the nitty gritty about whether this kind of selling makes sense. If you are after that – it’s easy to find more on the ever-informative Mumsnet – where it is clear some aren’t that keen on the whole idea.

what i really can’t understand with usbourne (or avon or pheonix) is that you can get it all on amazon or somewhere else at good prices. how do you make any money for the time put in? is it one huge con or are people happy to make a little money in the belief that they are actually achieving something? Whilst in the meantime these big companies are raking it in, asking for the workers to spread their name !!. The workers are evan BUYING their products to sell on! And the way i read it, it seems to be evolving almost of pyramid selling with one person taking on initiates to ‘manage’ …. it just seems to me someone is exploiting a strangely vulnerable (yet hugely strong (??)) sector of society – those who want to earn (however much that may be) whilst still wanting to be there at all times for their children.

Though I agree that you can just get it all on Amazon, the experience – in some ways - was very different to buying online.  Obviously, I could pick up the books, handle them, flick through the pages, all pretty crucial when you are getting items for fussy customers (children).  But, here’s the thing – what made it special: online,  you have to glean what you can from reading other people’s reviews; here I was surrounded by other mothers, who had children of the same age, who could share their wisdom and answer questions straight away. It was a real-life experience of hearing about other user’s opinions –  much vaunted as the critical feature for virtual shopping.

But I guess the killer question for some is whether it changed what I bought. On balance – yes – I got more – and know what I want to get next time.

PS Did I mention there are tea and cakes on tap too!

The UK media is having a field day kicking up a snowstorm of its own about excessive levels of pay - probably some are feeling relief that the spotlight is no longer so much on the press as it has been in the past couple of months with the Leveson inquiry.

There are strong views about the issue of high pay - revel in the vehemence of George Monbiot’s writing:

Obscene rewards for success are as socially corrosive as obscene rewards for failure. They reduce social mobility, enhance plutocratic power and allow the elite to inflict astonishing levels of damage on the environment. They create resentment and reduce the motivation of other workers, who see the greedy bosses as the personification of the company.

And then read about what it feels like on the other side – from the comments of one ex-trader:

It’s a hard thing for the other 99 percent to grasp, but for better or worse, that’s how they measure their value and self-worth: what their paycheck is. They’re being pilloried in the press and by the 99 percent. People in the industry are being treated like pariahs.

My contribution to the debate is based on personal experience. In 2004, I worked in India for a year in the local office of The Futures Company (then known as The Henley Centre). I wasn’t on a big salary, I didn’t have a juicy ex-pat deal and I was definitely carefully counting rupees in the face of surprisingly high rents in central Mumbai, but I was struck by how even what I was paid was a signficant multiple of what colleagues sitting around me were getting. These colleagues were freelancers working for IMRB (whose office space we shared). These individuals were paid on a daily basis and at the bottom of the professional pecking order. Based on rough calculations, I was probably getting ten times what they were, and I reckon the CEO  of the IMRB was getting at least ten times what I was.  To me, that seems like veritable income vertigo.

If I compare to what the situation would have been in the UK, I am pretty sure that none of my colleagues in London were ever paid ten times less than me and I would find  it hard to believe that our esteemed senior management earnt ten times my salary.

However, I have a final observation to offer: the situation in India was not quite as ‘ruthless’ as those calculations might seem. When there were times of celebration – for example birthdays or for some religious festival – it would be the senior staff who would pay out of their own pockets for treats, such as meals out, getting sweets in etc. It did feel like there was a recognition of some sort that noblesse oblige.

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about how it seems that old folk are naturally ‘green folk’. My thought were based on personal experience and observation so I was gratified to come across an article in The Economist which supports this idea. The article was about a new paper which showed that carbon footprints vary by age.

As one might expect, emissions rise as people get older, reflecting the fact consumption increases, for example, someone gets a car, they buy more clothes, they start a family, they get a bigger house, they get another car and so on. However, the analysis showed that reductions start to appear when people are in their mid-60s – giving us a reason to be positive (for once) about the implications of an ageing population.

A final observation – the research was based on looking at the lifestyle of the average American. I expect the angle of the line in the graph might look a little different for consumers from the other side of the Atlantic.

January  – the moment when we are supposed to think about the wonderful new habits we will start and, more importantly, keep. Making the most of our time is a goal which many think about. It can appear in a whole variety of different permutations:  better work-life balance, more quality time with family and friends, and creating more ‘me-time’ (the latter is a real coaching favourite).

Whatever our ambition, I was wondering how this might translate into one’s role as a consumer – what does good time management in a consumer look like? One area of consumer activity that is top of mind based on current personal experiences is holidays. When is it best to engage with this?

With the rise of the idea that we have all the offers at our fingertips and can hunt out the best deals, the ‘last minute is best’ school of thought might appear to hold sway. However, when you are constrained to travelling during the school holidays, such a way of thinking is a dangerous mirage. Everything is booked up and only the most expensive or undesirable options are left. On a whim, over Xmas, we decided it would be fun to go South Africa at Easter – fine if we were ready to fork out thousands on luxury lodges or else stay in local Disneyland-wannabe resorts.

Our alternative plan is camping in the UK, which is a simpler proposition in some senses, but not in others. Camping, as I have discovered, requires lots and lots of consumer activity. Whilst getting distracted researching the arcane items I might now require, I received some advice which made me think that perhaps you can actually get away with leaving it last minute.

Campers, being of the ‘advance planning is best’ school tend to buy everything nice and early. Many suppliers then put the remaining stock on sale in July to clear warehouses for next season’s equipment. Bingo – I should be able to get a bargain just when I need it. Fingers crossed.

PS – I have already got the tent – see proof below.