Who would you rather be, Dave Lewis or Marc Bolland?
A few weeks ago, I would have said Bolland; that I’d rather be running Marks & Spencer than trying to sort out a Tesco reeling from scandal, which had lost its mojo, hammered by competition from all sides.
Now, though, it’s Lewis who gets my vote.
Why? Because he’s lived up to his moniker of Drastic Dave and has taken firm action; because he avoided a Christmas wipe-out with a like-for-like drop in sales of only 0.3%; because he’s not stuck with a brand trying to clothe women from 40 to 100.
That’s not to disparage Bolland. But he’s now been managing M&S for five years come this May, and we’ve grown tired of the “jam tomorrow” promises.
It would seem that no matter what he does, he cannot persuade enough women to shop in his stores.
It’s not clear if anyone would know what to do — and all credit to Bolland for having a determined go (his hiring of the Lindsey brothers, who so transformed Next’s supply chain, was inspired). But boy, is his a difficult ask.
He could be forgiven for looking at his crowded food halls and putting on that wistful face of his, and thinking: “If only… if only I could just sell scones and Percy Pig sweets and ‘dine in for two for £10’; if only I could be Mark Price at Waitrose.”
What Lewis has shown is that there wasn’t much wrong with Tesco, that you don’t go from the Champions League to Division Two overnight — no matter how ferocious the assault from Aldi and Lidl.
Lewis’s measures, though tough, were crying out to be taken.
Shutting the salary-based pension scheme is merely catching up with everyone else; closing Cheshunt, so beloved of his predecessor-but-one, Sir Terry Leahy, is him saving money and making a cultural management shift; ditching 43 existing stores and halting 51 new ones is putting a brake on expansionism that had got out of hand; offloading peripheral businesses is good housekeeping; not paying a final dividend is forgivable in the circumstances.
He’s steered clear of an all-out price war against Aldi and Lidl (both of which are owned by Germans with deep pockets), and a Walmart-backed Asda.
Instead of that potentially suicidal path, he’s opted for guerrilla tactics, making selective cuts.
All of which must make Bolland in Paddington Basin green with envy. He did something similar when he arrived at M&S towers. But two major problems dog him.
One is online, which M&S has never cracked; the other is women’s clothing.
It’s Lewis who should be the jauntier today — and I didn’t think I’d be saying that a few weeks ago.
