New Morrisons boss Rami Baitiéh has injected a sense of urgency into Morrisons turnaround as he warns that businesses are like candles and they will burn out unless they change.
Baitiéh, who recently joined from French grocery giant Carrefour, made the comments in early briefings to staff, according to The Sunday Times.
The new boss has been stark about the challenges that Morrisons face and executives at the grocer are understood to have been hammering home the message internally that profits last year were not sufficient to cover the company’s interest bill following its acquisition by private equity giant Clayton Dubilier & Rice (CD&R).
The £7bn deal was finalised before the steep hike in interest rates and has left the supermarket owing £400m of annual interest payments on £6.6bn of debt.
The news comes as sales at the struggling retailer only increased sales by 3.7% during the 12 weeks to the end of November, leaving Morrisons significantly lower than the wider industry.
The new CEO wants to return Morrisons to higher sales volumes in order to generate more cash to cut prices and drive up sales.
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Improving service at Morrisons
Baitiéh sees improving customer service as central to Morrisons’ turnaround.
He has demanded that the top 150 execs at the retailer join him for a 7pm hour-long call each evening between Monday and Saturday, according to The Sunday Times. The CEO shares his observations from his daily store visits on the call and tries to get to the bottom of any problems.
The publication said that Baitiéh sees buyers and store managers as the most important people in the organisation and plans to give both roles more autonomy to better cater to the varied tastes of UK shoppers.
Improving in-store availability is also understood to be a key focus.
CD&R is aiming to boost Morrisons through a capital injection following Motor Fuel Group’s proposed acquisiton of the retailer’s 340 petrol forecourts, although discussions have gone on longer than expected to finalise the deal.
