Our federated operating model led to a blurred go-to-market focus, structural complexity and siloed ways of working. We have identified the following issues that have negatively affected our ability to capture market share, leverage supplier relationships and optimise our associates’ effectiveness:

• Overlapping customer value propositions (CVPs)across the brands, impacting market share
• High duplication of support functions with low levels of standardisation and no use of shared services
• High overheads, selling, general and administration (SG&A) costs with cost growth exceeding revenue growth
• Limited leveraging of suppliers and end-market focused collaboration across the Group
• Incentives and culture geared towards divisional self-interest

We have taken a decision to simplify our structure to drive Group-wide efficiencies. We will evolve from the federated model of four divisions with discrete capabilities, disparate systems and limited digital capabilities to a customer-facing integrated model with distinct Retail and Wholesale business units.

By doing this we will create a more efficient customer-centric organisation that optimises customer focus, supplier relationships and procurement scale as well as back-office efficiencies.

Further, we will establish centres of excellence to support customer-facing business units, eliminating duplicated functions and introducing high levels of standardisation across the Group. Centres of excellence include Finance, Supply chain and Information Technology (IT), including Digital. IT and Digital will be led by the Chief Operating Officer.

The value to our business will extend beyond cost savings and will enable:

• Business units to increase their customer focus
• Improved working capital efficiency
• Enhanced risk management
• Business transformation
• Improvements in functional excellence and cost efficiency.

The evolved operating structure will enable the business to be more agile, efficient and customer-focused.