Harveys Furnishings was a lounge suite and home furnishings retailer with 200 stores nationwide, operating on out of town retail park and high street locations. Trading under a variety of facias, the brand had grown both organically and through company acquisition but with a chronic lack of spending on store format and no consistent brand strategy or messaging.
As Group Property Director, I motivated a board proposal for an investment of £100m to completely renovate the estate, consolidate the various trading fascia’s and introduce a completely new brand proposition.
This entailed the relocation of over 40 stores from units which were beset by legacy issues of onerous leases, of the incorrect size or in the wrong location on first generation retail parks.
Using an in-house professional team, I appointed a high profile retail design house, and managed the roll out of the new trading form to all stores over a three year period.
I was responsible for the entire procurement process and negotiated various ‘value added’ elements such extended warranties for new LED lighting and HVAC systems
The project was delivered on time and 1% less than budget.