2.2. Company overview
The three companies that are reviewed in light of the service management problem are: John Lewis, Marks & Spencer and Debenhams. In this part a general company overview, financial measures of the last three years and strategic actions are included.
2.2.1. John Lewis
John Lewis is one of the biggest department store chains across the UK, which is offering a broad product line, among other things: home & garden, electricals, clothing, accessories and giftware and other kind of services like insurance for cars, events, travel and life. Besides having 46 physical stores, in addition, customers can order products online. In the future John Lewis is planning on opening three new stores, investing 37% of capital expenditure in…show more content… In 2014 the 30% of the John Lewis’s sales were through the online shop services (Reuters, 2014) therefore they want to build on this division further. Based on their strategic principles customer relationships must enhance firm loyalty through enabling choice, adding value and providing exceptional services (John Lewis PLC, 2015a). According to this view, loyalty is a result of meeting the customer needs as well as treating them with honesty (John Lewis PLC,…show more content… They also take into account customers’ trends and try to discover and unveil them through extensive research using customer panels, surveys, direct and online contact (Debenhams PLC, 2015a).
They are focusing on besides building a more competitive business and on a better return from their physical stores, on becoming a complete multichannel company that broadens the customers’ range of choice. So their still narrow span of online services is one of the fields with room for improvement for example by catching up with online service quality of the competitors and by improving the online profitability, by reducing the fulfilment costs and adjusting website developments. (Debenhams, Annual Report & Accounts, 2014). On the other hand the managerial team is reviewing the promotions strategy, which used to be the strength of this firm, since the last results show that maybe fewer discounts can increase sales revenues (Debenhams PLC,