WAITROSE: PARTNERS IN SUCCESS father, who was also in the retail trade. N T O T
n Thursday 21st July, the Club was enthralled by Damien Wilson, the Manager
of Waitrose‟s Upminster branch, who talked to us about the rise of Waitrose as a major food provider and its senior partner, the John Lewis Partnership. Now a talk about retail practices could seem in prospect a daunting task, but in Damien‟s hands it was fascinating. – and all of this coming from someone who has only been manager of our local branch of Waitrose for some 5 to 6 weeks!
he Upminster branch of Waitrose has been a fantastic success since it opened on the site
of the old Somerfield supermarket in May 2009, itself built on the site of Upminster‟s old cinema.
D J
amien began by outlining the origins of Waitrose and of John Lewis‟s. The firm of
Waitrose, beginning as long ago as 1904 when the first store was opened in Acton, West London, by a Mr Wait, a Mr Rose and a Mr Taylor – hence (apart from the mysterious Mr Taylor) the name Waitrose. From 1904 the store did well, and by 1920 Waitrose had 5 shops in Greater London.
ohn Lewis‟s rise was slightly different. It was started by a business man, Mr John Lewis,
who owned a department store in Oxford Street. Lewis was a bit of an eccentric because he had ideas about what should happen to the profits generated by the store – the idea that profits should be shared amongst the employees of the firm – an idea which was highly disliked by his
evertheless, John Lewis persisted, and in 1918/19 he started his idea of a partnership
for all employees of his firm, where each employee would get a proportion of the total profits according to the number of staff employed. Despite his father, there was sound business sense in the partnership scheme for it made the staff highly motivated – their hard work would be reflected in their total earnings.
he prime points of difference between John Lewis Partnership scheme and the majority
of large retail stores was that there were no shareholders, and that the success of the enterprise depended largely on customer satisfaction with the service provided and the quality of the goods sold. So the aim of the firm since its origins has been to make the customer feel welcome by providing a good atmosphere, and to give the best service possible – and thus encouraging customers to come again – and again!.
D N
amien then turned to the link between Waitrose and John Lewis. Up to the Second
World War John Lewis had proved to be a great success, and in 1929 made a successful offer for the Waitrose business, Once under the overall umbrella of John Lewis, Waitrose then was run on the same lines as its parent company – the partnership scheme. From 1929 this new branch of the John Lewis Partnership went from success to success, and in 1954 Waitrose opened its first supermarket.
ow there are 250 Waitrose stores in the UK, while 10 years ago there were only 160
stores with an annual turnover of £8 million – now the turnover is £519 billion! Some years there had been thought in the John Lewis organisation of selling off Waitrose, but this was quickly dropped, and now though separate, the two companies – John Lewis and Waitrose – all work on the same principles established by John Lewis back in the 1920‟s, and there is no division of opinion between the staff of the two organisations.
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