Edgars Buzz #05

quarterly

23 february 2018

issue05

Send your comments or queries to: EdgarsBuzz@Edcon.co.za

edgars team Andrew Levermore

kelso beauty 30% staff discount

let’s connect Employee engagement

Message from CE: Andrew Levermore

edgars team I hope you all had a warm, happy festive season and were able to enjoy a short break with family and friends.

Despite excellent preparation and execution across the business, our peak trade was not quite what we wanted it be. The whole market was distressed and our competitors felt the effect as well. Heavy discounting and unprecedented promotion activity saw us all fighting for the little money that was out there. Our biggest competitor discounted across their apparel categories for the first time in their history.

Black Friday in 2016 saw us capture massive market share from our aggressive tactics. Back then our competitors did not fully participate, but this year everyone jumped in and the market was full of promotional activity, in many cases lasting the entire week. In this environment, we did very well to anniversary the same sales numbers as 2016. However, the volume of cash taken out of the customer’s wallet by the widespread promotion probably took up sales that would ordinarily happen in December. This had a negative impact on our normal peak season trade.

The good news is that stocks are much cleaner than last year and we did not need to break Sale before Christmas as we did in 2016. We have taken action on some categories where it was required.

By the time you read this I would have departed the business with fond memories of our two years together. During this time you have all accomplished an enormous amount and coped with large-scale change. The business is beginning to settle for the future. My thanks for your belief in our plan and your excellent execution of many different projects all happening at the same time.

Additional changes are likely to come as the new leadership refines the greater plan, tweaks some fresh issues and works to fully execute the turnaround.

Chief Executive of the Edgars Chain

mike elliot

Mike Elliot began his career as a Chartered Accountant in 1987 at Ernst & Young where he worked for eight years in audit, corporate finance and consulting.

He then took a ninety degree turn when he moved into the retail industry by becoming an early partner of Naartjie Clothing in 1994.

A very warm welcome to Mike Elliott as the new Edgars Chief Executive.

Many of you have met Mike and are already comfortably engaging. I wish Mike all the best and offer all my support for a successful continuation of the Edgars turnaround.

Finally, thank you all for your support during my time at Edgars, and for your belief in the way forward. I wish everyone well in their careers and all their future endeavours.

Till we meet again!

Andrew

He spent 13 years as the Managing Director of Naartjie, building the brand as a leading childrenswear retailer in South Africa, and he had an instrumental role in launching the Naartjie brand in the USA. Mike then joined Luxottica in 2009 as the Managing Director/General Manager for the Sunglass Hut brand in South Africa and then Regional Director for Africa, Middle East and India managing the business across 14 countries.

Mike also served on the Global Board of Directors of OneSight, a global nonprofit organisation committed to bringing sustainable and urgent vision care solutions to communities who need it most.

On 1 December 2017 Mike joined the Edcon Group as the Chief Executive of the Edgars Chain. Hailing from the Mother City, Mike is a self-confessed lover of good coffee and cannot get his day started without at least two cups. Mike is a family man who has been happily married to his wife, Carole, for 28 years.

Together with their two children - 18-year-old daughter, Jamie, and 16-year-old son, Kyle - he leads an active lifestyle.

Mike still fondly remembers his first experience with the Edgars brand, which took place when he started his career at Ernest & Young. He realised on his first day at work that he only owned one suit (which he was wearing on the day!).

He then proceeded to the nearest Edgars store in Cape Town’s CBD to purchase his second suit. To this day he can still remember the great shopping experience that he had in the menswear department.

Mike has hit the ground running and has already made his presence known by walking the floor and getting to know all the team members across the Edgars landscape.

Please join me in welcoming our new leader Mike to the Edgars team, and wishing him every success in this role as Chief Executive of Edgars.

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Edgars presents

kelso beauty From 13 November, Kelso Beauty (Edgars’ own private-label beauty range), started an aggresssive roll-out plan inv 104 stores across the country, which we believe is the world’s first.

The consumers’ reaction has since been phenomenal. The brand is inclusive of all South Africans, which can be seen in its representation of true South African women in its advertising images to colours and names – take your pick from Bloem Cookie Dough, to Jozi Midnight and anything in-between. These names have sure left everyone that has engaged with the Kelso Beauty brand, warm and fuzzy inside.

In true fashion and style, the official launch in October 2017, brought the crème de la crème of the fashion and beauty world together at Shepstone Gardens in Houghton, Johannesburg. A variety of beauty products were showcased while beauty bloggers demonstrated their favourite make-up items to guests. The focus was on the elements that fully encompass what Kelso Beauty is all about - a range of products created for South African women of all different skin tones and types. From the young cosmopolitan woman and the aspiring fashion icon to the mature, traditional woman who owns and defines her own beauty.

Launching our own beauty line means Edgars is an entity that covers all grounds in retail. Kelso Beauty recognises that each women plays different roles and that can be clearly seen in the range. From the foundation colour ranges to lipstick colours, all South African women are represented. Kelso Beauty is proud to lay claim that it is a brand for South African women in all their beauty.

The Kelso Beauty brand ethos is to provide a luxury experience that is affordable, attainable and accessible to all without burning holes in our pockets.

It is affordable without compromising on quality, while staying abreast with what is happening in the Kelso fashion space. The bigger outlook is to constantly grow the range, with product drops on seasonal colour looks, while at the same time addressing consumer beauty needs.

The products’ pricing is really worth noting, ranging from R34.95 for Bath & Body products; from R99.95 for Colour cosmetics; and Foundations can be purchased from R249.95.PLUS, staff members still qualify for their 30% discount. Looking good has never been this affordable!

Kelso Beauty is now available at selected Edgars stores and selected Kelso retail outlets nationwide.

For All Our Beauty

free2buxafropunk Repro 1508255 Kelso billboard 6x6m_v3.indd 1

Afropunk celebrates the creativity and freedom of spirit embodied by alternative black culture and has become a touchstone of a cultural movement strongly reminiscent of the early days of hip-hop.

In 2005, the very first annual Afropunk Festival debuted to wildly enthusiastic crowds at the iconic Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) in New York City. The festival celebrated and unified the cultural cornerstones of Afropunk: music, film, skate, and most importantly, the fiercely independent and influential individuals that are the lifeblood of the Afropunk community.

Now a cult festival, Afropunk has been described by the New York Times as “the most multicultural festival in the US”. Joburg takes a coveted spot alongside New York, London, Paris and Atlanta as one of the cities that hosted Afropunk in 2017. International headline acts included Anderson Paak and Laura Mvula, while South Africa was represented by some of the biggest names in the local alternative music scene such as The Brother Moves On, Spoek Mathambo, Nakhane Touré, Thandiswa Mazwai and Sho Madjozi.

The impact of Free2bu’s brand association with an internationally celebrated

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concept such as Afropunk brought our brand into focus with youth from all over the world. A snapshot of the US Editor-in-Chief of Teen Vogue, Elaine Welteroth, in a shirt dress bought at the Free2bu stall (which she wore on multiple occasions during her local visit) is testament on its own of the huge potential to garner new customers, celebrate a uniquely South African brand and continue to broaden our reach.

Stall presence alone solidified the team’s efforts to take the brand to new heights as the only local youth brand from a prominent retailer finally starting to set trends instead of follow them. Our influence was made evident when an image of one of our sales assistants posted on Afropunk’s social media gathered over 19 000 likes!

Capturing the spirit of a movement and taking part in a showcase as monumental as Afropunk means that, in the eyes of the youth, our brand is that much “cooler”, a little bit more relevant, and certainly a consideration for their future purchases.

The momentum must be maintained; the revolution will be televised!

The Store Leadership Development Programme

#BEEMPOWERED With an emphasis on building an empowered workforce and focusing on leadership and innovation, the Edgars chain embarked on a leadership journey.

Through several projects run by The Store Leadership Development Programme, the six pilot stores (mentioned below) worked to make their unique contribution to the broader Edgars strategy.

Edgars Menlyn | Edgars Sandton Edgars Mall of Africa | Edgars Gateway Edgars Clearwater | Edgars Canal Walk The aim of the programme is to enable the store leadership team to drive change by embedding the strategic drivers of customer centricity, simplicity and

people empowerment in their own behaviours and actions.

The teams participated in five leadership development blocks centred around core themes. Throughout this process, each team collaborated very closely with their Divisional Operations Manager and their coaches who played a critical role from the start of the leadership journey.

The programme allowed the store leaders to understand themselves and their teams better, as well as presented a platform for building relationships within the leadership teams. This will, ultimately, bring the “heart” back into business and allow for greater agility in navigating the changes.

The exciting news is that there are plans for the programme to be rolled out to more stores in time.

We are looking forward to the change this programme will bring to our chain and our operations shortly.

The Learning Cube

learning made easy We are very proud to introduce The Learning Cube – a programme exclusively designed with the Edgars Merchant Team in mind.

This exciting learning programme was launched in October 2017 and is designed to ensure that new and existing Buying & Planning team members are given an opportunity to sharpen their skills and also gain fresh insights in identified areas of development.

All content was compiled by selected Subject Matter Experts within the business and vetted by senior managers to ensure its relevance and accuracy.

Gone are those death-by-bullet-point training sessions!

We did our best to ensure that there is a good balance between time spent completing self-directed learning using online resources, on-the-job coaching and classroom training. All learning material has also been made available electronically via The Learning Cube webpage which is housed on the Edcon learning portal and can therefore be accessed anytime, anywhere.

The Learning Cube consists of the following modules: • Orientation • Merchant Finance • Analyse • Plan • Buy and Allocate • Fabrics and Fibres • Negotiation Skills • Personal Branding • Presentation Skills

The programme has kicked off in full force! Line Managers have concluded their development discussions and the first Merchant Finance and Fabrics and Fibres sessions have already taken place. The Analyse, Plan, Buy and Allocate sessions are due to be delivered in Quarter 4.

Check out some of the initial comments from our merchants below: “A very big well done on The Learning Cube. It is fresh and exciting. Edgars should be so proud!” – Rosemary Da Silva “As experienced people that are within the business, we can always keep referring back to these modules to refresh our memories and to fine-tune our skills to the benefit of the department.” – Sello Maluleke We also asked learners who attended the Merchant Finance Thought Leader Sessions whether there was anything they particularly liked about the course.

Here are some of their responses: “I loved the energy in the class, and the real-life examples, tips, guidance and advice we received. The course was very motivating and a good reminder of why we are in this business.”

“The course highlighted the amount of negotiation power I actually have versus what I have been using. Definitely worthwhile; as a Buyer, I learnt alot.”

If you are not a merchant, you may be wondering when something like this will be launched for you. Don’t worry; we are working hard in the background to ensure that we prioritise critical business units with a pressing learning need to design and develop similar learner-centred programmes.

Watch this space! Opportunities will be available across the business in the near future.

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let’s connect Employee Engagement remains a key focus area in Edgars and on 1 November 2017 we had our second “Let’s Connect” event of the year.

At the event, the Edgars team was given a preview of all the exciting activations to come by Kelso Cosmetics, Placecol and Toy Kingdom, who were launched in stores in the 3rd quarter of 2017.

The staff also had the opportunity to taste the delicious food served by our first coffee shop, Made Café, located within the Edgars store in Eastgate Shopping Centre, Johannesburg.

As a team we were able to celebrate our long-serving employees and acknowledge the contributions they have made to the brand over the years as the brand has changed and grown.

Edgars brings you

Toy Kingdom We’ve teamed up with Toy Kingdom and Build-a-Bear to offer kiddies’ toys at five of our Edgars stores: in Cape Town’s Canal Walk and at the Eastgate, Sandton, Westville Pavilion and Mall of Africa stores in Gauteng.

You might wonder what, if anything, Edgars knows about kiddies’ toys, but we believe this kind of partnership is in line with our goals and plans.

“We are on a mission to expand and ensure that our customers get anything and everything they need at a central place – at an Edgars store. The partnership with Toy Kingdom is a wonderful one for us because we will now get to attract all our little customers and give them the best kind of toys in the land,” said former Edgars CEO Andrew Levermore.

As toy specialists, Toy Kingdom believes this team-up is a good investment as it enables the brand to expand its reach and accessibility to its customers. “We are delighted to have a presence within selected Edgars stores and believe that this partnership will contribute positively to the customer experience as a whole,” said Henri van Wijk, Toy Kingdom’s Managing Director.

The two giants are still in discussion about further expanding the Toy Kingdom and Build-a-Bear presence in selected iconic Edgars stores across the country this year.

Even more good news: customers can use their Edgars ‘Thank U’ cards to purchase the Toy Kingdom and Build-a-Bear offers.

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We were honoured to be addressed by our new CE0 Grant Pattison, who gave us an overview of the way forward.

To end off the day, the team was entertained by talented dancers dressed by our very own private labels – Free2bu, J Exchange and Kelso. All-in-all it was a fantastic day of interacting with our fellow colleagues.

This is what one employee had to say about the experience: “For the first time I feel very proud to be working for an employer of choice.

The leadership listens to its employees and recognises our hard work. The set-up of the premises, the engagement, the visuals and the convenience of the venue were all great. We are also proud to be associated with the pink drive. Well done, senior leadership. We appreciate you and will continue to be proud to work for Edcon.”