Multichannel Success Podcast series

Season 2 Episode 6 - Multichannel Synchronising digital & physical - Transcript

Summary

In this enlightening episode, we sit down with David Kohn and Paul McDermott to delve into the critical world of multi-channel retailing. We explore the challenges, strategies, and the evolving landscape of retail in the wake of COVID-19, discussing how stores are transforming and the pivotal role of data and analytics.

#### David Worby

Hello and welcome to this week's episode in Season 2 of the Multi-Channel Success Podcast.

#### Mark Pinkerton

Today we're going to talk about optimising all your channels in multi-channel retailing and today I have with me David Kohn and Paul McDermott. Hello

#### David Kohn

Hello

#### Mark Pinkerton

So if I can just ask you, David, what has been your multi-channel experience? Why is it relevant for us to have you here today? Well, thank you.

#### Paul McDermott

Well, thank you, yeah. I started my career in the days before online, so started as a classic bricks and mortar retailer.

#### Mark Pinkerton

Yeah.

#### Paul McDermott

Over the years, I held a number of positions in many well-known retailers. Started off in the buying and merchandising, looked in the business strategy, but then gradually moved into the e-commerce space. All of the retailers I've worked in have had a combination of online and high street and one or two other channels besides. So I've had long experience of dealing with the different challenges that managing those multiple channels creates.

#### Mark Pinkerton

So you've dealt with both sides and you've got the grey hair to prove it? Very much so.

#### David Kohn

Paul? So I started my career in mail order and then worked through a number of different brands and retailers that have been a mix of single channel and multi-channel, mail order, store only, pure plays and then of course multi- channel retailers. So started at Great Universal, then Pentland Brands and Speedo, spent a long time at Poundland and then Cotswold, Outdoor and Ryman, and all manner of different roles.

#### Mark Pinkerton

and all very well-known brands on the high street. So, in terms of what do we call this, there's still an ongoing debate. I remember when the term omni- channel was created and it was about 13 years ago. And when I saw that term, it was like, yes, that's it. That's gonna be the one that everybody refers to this thing as, this holistic view of the universe that we're, retail universe that we're trying to look at. But multi-channel seems to be surviving quite well in terms of a name. So, what do you tend to call it and why?

#### David Kohn

I talk myself around in circles about this quite a lot actually and I've had jobs, in fact my first Omnichannel job title, I did resist and asked for it to be changed and I lost. Omnichannel for me is a great aspiration for an organisation to achieve because it sets out an ambition of how you want to treat your customers and what kind of experience you want to give customers, in my mind. But I think what often people refer to as Omnichannel is the same and I don't believe that you can have the same experience for a customer across all of the different types of channels. So in some ways it's a good word to use internally but in other ways I find it quite unhelpful because it's not used in the right way.

#### Mark Pinkerton

Yeah. Yeah, I think it's good from a point of view of forcing an organisation to try and synchronise everything across all of the channels, but at the same time, as you say, you don't necessarily want to treat a customer the same way in every individual channel. There should be flex in that process somewhere.

#### Paul McDermott

Yeah, I mean, I probably should have an opinion on this, as I've called my business the multi-channel expert. So I should be something of an expert in explaining what it is. But to me, just to take that point on board, I think retailers have increasingly got to think of themselves as brands. They've got to think of themselves as a business that means something to their customers. How they then reflect that across their channels may be different, but the way in which they represent themselves as a brand and what they mean to the customer has got to be the same.

#### Mark Pinkerton

So the same values not necessarily the same execution.

#### Paul McDermott

Exactly. Same values, the same meaning, the same sense of what they deliver to the customer. But the way in which they execute that in store, the way in which they execute it if they sell on Amazon, the way in which they execute that online does not have to be exactly the same.

#### Mark Pinkerton

And I think that was a trap some people fell into in the early days. So, in terms of recent experience in COVID, how have things changed? Why do you think COVID has been important? Because certainly I think we all believe that COVID has been important in terms of changing mentalities and so on. What are your thoughts on it?

#### Paul McDermott

Well, from my perspective, I think COVID, or more particularly post-COVID, has been a really important reminder that multi-channel, or having multiple channels, is still important. I think there was a period during COVID when we thought online is everything. Online is not only the future, it's the now. But I think we've been reminded since COVID, where online sales have been very sluggish to say the least, where in many cases store sales have recovered, we've been reminded that the store channel, and indeed some of the other physical channels, are important. And we have to remember that, and we perhaps have to reorientate ourselves a little bit to put resource back into that traditional channel.

#### Mark Pinkerton

But at the same time, the UK remains over-shopped in terms of the number of retail outlets it has per head of population compared to many other countries and arguably there were too many shops at one point and clearly that has retrenched and I think Covid has helped focus people's minds onto primary and perhaps secondary locations and tertiary ones have gone to the wall. Yeah look I think

#### Paul McDermott

Yeah, look, I think there's no doubt, and we would all reflect this, that shopping patterns and shopping volumes have changed significantly. I think one of the things we'll come on to talk about is what is the role of the store in this new environment. It has definitely changed. It's not what it was when I first came into retail, when fundamentally it was about location, location, location. It was about availability. Now it's far more around experience, and it's a different experience that you get in store than you get online, but yeah, it's definitely changed, and we have to understand the role that the store performs.

#### Mark Pinkerton

Yeah, and Paul, what are your thoughts on it?

#### David Kohn

The towns around the areas where I live, and over the last 20 years, there have been different reasons why the shape of property on those high streets has changed. And you're right, I drive past quite a big out-of-town estate that is probably now 20% empty compared to how it used to be. So yeah, I think it's really interesting that there are quite big brands and retailers now that are taking up more stores, they're snapping up store estate from retailers that have gone into administration. But often that's not pure growth, it's usually a swap, it's a, we'll take that one thanks because it's a bit better than the one we've got in a similar area, and due to such a high cost as well, I think retailers are being a little bit more choosy about what premises they have.

#### Mark Pinkerton

Yeah, and I think various retailers' location strategies have clearly been divergent and

#### David Kohn

Yeah.

#### Mark Pinkerton

arguably that was part of the reason behind Wilco's failure was that their locations were less good than some of their competitors. But even when retailers have been taken over, for example, I'm thinking of Reece having been bought by Next, and they could have closed a whole load of stores as a result of that, but they haven't, because that's happened relatively recently, i.e. post-Covid, they haven't thought, oh my god, it's all going to be online and we'll get rid of it.

#### Paul McDermott

I think the fundamental change, as I said, when I first came to retail, retailing was predominantly about convenience. Now convenience is delivered online, you get a wider range, you get better availability, you get things pretty quickly by and large. So the role of the store has to change, it can't simply be about convenience, that's not enough for most retailers to survive. So the fact that some retailers are opening more shops is because they're seeing the role that the store can perform for their brand as a whole in the context of a multi-channel strategy.

#### Mark Pinkerton

that makes complete sense. So how do you think retailers should think about digital and retail together whether we call it multi or omni-channel or even total retail or just retail? How should retailers actually at a practical level start to put these things together?

#### David Kohn

So for me, I think where it's always successful is where the retailer, the brand, has a really clear idea of what they stand for, what their proposition is, and then the choice of channels, first of all, the existence of those channels, are we going to trade in those channels, and then how it's executed. It's completely aligned to what that brand should stand for and what the proposition is, whether it's luxury, value, regardless of category. So the consistency around the ethos of the business and what the customer is going to expect is the primary thing, and then the channels should fit into that. That makes sense to me.

#### Paul McDermott

That makes sense to me, David. And again, I think you, Mark, made the points earlier on that when we first started talking about omni-channel or multi- channel, we thought everything should be the same across all channels. And I think where the whole understanding of multi-channel has matured is that we can now look at the different channels and say, well, those different channels serve different purposes. And for me, if you're a multi-channel retailer, you've got to be thinking, let's say, you've obviously got to have your brand consensus, but you've got to be thinking, what are the specific things I need to deliver through this channel? And how do I deliver it through this channel?

#### Mark Pinkerton

Yes, yes, and I've certainly, I've worked with retailers who have been really quite good at taking a different approach to social media channels, for example, in being much more, much less formal through social media than they are through their normal store or website.

#### Paul McDermott

based channels. Yes, I think the marketing, one of the fundamental challenges for any retailer, be they single channel or multi-channel, is marketing and driving traffic. And I think what you've described there is there's a much more organic, channel-specific approach to marketing. It's all within the context of a clear brand ethos and a clear brand proposition, but there are different tones, there are different messaging types, there are different consumer groups that you're trying to appeal to. And for me, that marketing channel challenge is one of the key opportunities that we've got now with all of these multiple ways of reaching the customer.

#### Mark Pinkerton

Yeah, and we're going to talk about data and analytics in a little bit, but clearly one of the things is that you can use the data from one channel to inform what you do on another channel.

#### David Kohn

Yeah, and even some channels you get limited data and you can't use it. Amazon is a great example of, you know, you don't own the relationship with that customer.

#### Paul McDermott

You know you

#### David Kohn

Often you don't even know the customer. According to Amazon's rules, you definitely can't market to them. Great channel for building brand awareness, great channel for increasing volume. And even within that channel, really important choices around are you going to self-fulfill? Are you going down the prime route? Is it self-prime? Is it Amazon Fulfill Prime? even within one seemingly simple channel there's some really complicated and expensive choices to make around how you execute yeah so the execution across all of these different channels is really key

#### Mark Pinkerton

You

#### David Kohn

yes

#### Mark Pinkerton

Yes, I mean in the old school we would have just tried to drive everybody online and then fulfill them through the online store, but now you'll have a store on Instagram, you can have a store on TikTok, so you can actually take the orders in those different channels and then try and fulfill them through the common back-end fulfillment. In terms of channels and your choice of channels, how should retailers think about that and how they choose the appropriate channels?

#### David Kohn

For me, still, it needs to start with, once you've aligned with your own brand proposition, I think the next consideration then is your customers and identifying if your customers are shopping across those different channels is the primary consideration then for, should we be going with more stores? Should we be going down an eBay route? Whatever it is, it's really then got to match your customer. And it needs to be a little bit more scientific than, are our customers Gen Z, therefore we need to be on TikTok? Might be a good decision, but I think looking a little bit more into the data...

#### Mark Pinkerton

If you have a niche brand and you've got a very clearly defined audience that kind of makes sense But many organizations don't have that sort of luxury Yeah, and if you're a more general retailer, then yeah, you clearly you need to plan it

#### David Kohn

Yeah.

#### Mark Pinkerton

Yeah, and everybody has finite resources as well. So you can't do all you know all channels for everybody

#### David Kohn

Yeah.

#### Mark Pinkerton

Very few people have the luxury of being able to afford that

#### Paul McDermott

Yeah, I think assuming that most of the people we're talking to are already in multiple channels, then they'll have some stores, they'll have a website or more than one website and they may be trading through the likes of Amazon and eBay. The real question for them is how they deploy their resources, what are the things they focus on and to come back to Paul's point, it's about understanding where your customers are and what is the most economical and effective way to reach them. So if your problem is brand awareness, you may find that you want to invest in a TikTok campaign or an Instagram campaign or you may find that it's more effective for you to open a big new store on Oxford Street. The challenge for you is to identify which of your expenditures, which of your efforts are going to have the most impact in reaching the customers where there is the biggest growth opportunity.

#### Mark Pinkerton

And at the moment, there's an awful lot of uncertainty over, you know, we've got a relatively stagnant economy. If it's growing at all, it's marginal. What is happening to footfall in certain locations, you know, Oxford Street, I would argue, probably still hasn't recovered from pre-COVID levels. I haven't seen any data recently, but the last data set I saw was still implying that and walking down it, you don't feel like it's busy like it used to be. And that's clearly a prime location. So how can retailers make decisions with that degree of uncertainty going on right now?

#### David Kohn

Magic question and no magic answer. The P&L;, you know, is usually where people will look to first. You know, the last three years of so much volatility and uncertainty and change in the landscape for multiple reasons, the ability to try and think a little bit longer term about the customer and measuring your customers in the organisation, but coming through the retailer as well as the pound notes, I think is becoming really key. Switching to that model of measuring for the longer term is going to be much more important.

#### Paul McDermott

Yeah, and I think you raise a really good question there because for those of us that have spent a long time in e-commerce, test and trial is meet and drink. That's how we operate. We try something. We put a...

#### Mark Pinkerton

Although a lot of people have stopped doing that because e-commerce has stopped growing. But it's still relatively easy to try something and see how it goes. When you get into questions like should I lay a store down in a town centre or a city centre, that's a much bigger question and that's why it's more difficult now sometimes to think through your customer acquisition strategy or brand awareness strategy because some of those easier things that you could have done in a pure e-commerce environment are a little more complicated when you've got a multiple channel environment.

#### Mark Pinkerton

Yes, and obviously a store opening can take a very long time, Ikea and Oxford Circus would be an example where they've gone back at least another year.

#### David Worby

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#### Mark Pinkerton

Do you think that some retailers actually jump to conclusions a bit too early in terms of the new future of digital being everything and therefore cut back their stores too hard? Do you think that's happening?

#### Paul McDermott

Look, I don't know the ins and outs of the economics of the likes of John Lewis. They closed a lot of stores. What I do know is around the same time, Heels, where I was working at the time, we were putting down concessions in Fenwick's around the country. That was a nice win-win because it gave us brand awareness in certain locations where we went and it gave Fenwick a chance to fill some of the space, which was probably becoming a little under-occupied. So I think, to me, the long-term future of the high street, the long-term future of high street space is a really complex and difficult question that we can't answer today. But I still think there are opportunities to both trade well, to try things, and to get the benefits of brand visibility and brand awareness without having to make multi-million pound decisions either to open stores or close them.

#### Mark Pinkerton

And so pop-up shops becomes a much bigger part of the mix in that sort of environment you've described.

#### Paul McDermott

Potentially. Absolutely. Potentially.

#### Mark Pinkerton

Potentially, absolutely. Potentially.

#### David Kohn

And even, you know, with the return to travel, you know, airport retailing is suddenly starting to boom again. So there are, with a little bit of creativity and imagination, the best retailers are certainly looking at.

#### Mark Pinkerton

Yeah, that makes sense, that makes sense. So in terms of retail space, how should people be thinking about their retail space compared to how they used to? Has any thinking changed or do you think it's still the same approach?

#### David Kohn

The phrase that's often used is how are you going to bring online into a store? Really, it's about how do you make sure that your customer can have a really good shopping experience that has a good basket value attached to it? And should that be using technology? Is technology going to aid that shopping experience? And therefore, you know, the conversion rate in store and then your average basket value. So that's probably the biggest thing that I can see with people using space in store.

#### Paul McDermott

I think for me, and this has been talked about quite a bit, is rethinking what the KPIs of a store are. If a physical store exists only to make profit in its own right, then you're making the job really tough. If you think of a store as being a brand ambassador, being somewhere where online customers can experience the store in real life, and you attribute some of your online sales to that store, you attribute some of your corporate sales to the fact that you have a store, then I think you're seeing the store in the way that you should see it in the modern environment.

#### Mark Pinkerton

Yes, and I've certainly worked with retailers in the past who have done no advertising on

#### Paul McDermott

Yes.

#### Mark Pinkerton

the basis that opening a store on the high street was the advertising at that stage and they were quite effective at doing that.

#### David Kohn

elaborate on David's point, it's really interesting looking at some of the brands now that have great flagship stores, particularly on Oxford Street, Regent Street. Jimmy Sharks is a recent example, Nike's been there for a while and I think going back to channel strategy, even Nike's retail channel strategy has channels within it. Oxford Street is one fantastic experience, Cheshire Oaks is a different retailing experience altogether, so just even with that, the complexities and the opportunities of what retailers can do with space in different locations is really important, really useful.

#### Mark Pinkerton

Yeah, Nike's an interesting example because clearly they've dramatically reduced their wholesale channels and they are getting closer to being a D2C brand. They're not and they probably never will be, or they won't be for another decade or so, but they are definitely moving in the direction of trying to be a D2C brand, so therefore there must be some inherent advantages in being a direct-to-consumer brand and having that control over the experience.

#### Paul McDermott

We've looked a lot in online about trying to bring storytelling and experience into online. It's very difficult, and there are certain things you simply cannot replicate that you can do in a store environment. So the social element, having people around you, whether it's fellow customers or whether it's members of staff, the sensory element, the storytelling element. Yes, of course you can tell a story online, but you can tell such a bigger story when you're in a physical environment. And I think, again, this is how retailers have got to think of the store. They've got to think of it doing the things that are more difficult or impossible to do online. As I say, thinking about it in the traditional way, which is, I am only here to sell stuff, is a road to ruin.

#### Mark Pinkerton

Yeah, and certainly we know that Gymshark is not thinking about its flagship store in terms of that. It's a brand investment, and they've openly said that that is a brand investment. But clearly not every store can be a brand investment. Okay, so I kind of want to move on from there to the sort of data and analytics side of things, and how should retailers be thinking about this? We're going to come on to loyalty later, but in terms of the way that people are using data, are there ways in which we think people should be moving?

#### David Kohn

There's lots of opportunities around empowering, providing more knowledge, decision-making coming from different levels of the organisation rather than very conventionally top-down. But it's the opportunity to measure things differently and predominantly measure your business performance or your brand performance through the customer rather than through the pound note. So for me that's the real opportunity, that's the end game of where I'd want to be heading if you know working in retail and I think we're all pretty much

#### Mark Pinkerton

And I think we're all pretty much aligned with you on that. Yes.

#### Paul McDermott

Yes, I think I come from a background where you'd look at your sales and stock figures religiously every day of the week and you'd make your decisions based on whether things were selling or whether you had overstocks. We now have the opportunity to look at customer behavior. We have an opportunity to look at the why as opposed to the what and that philosophy should permeate through the whole organization. I think in many organizations, buying is still largely independent of that sort of understanding. I think that's a big area where multi-channel businesses should be looking at bringing their online data, their understanding of customer behavior, really inculcating that into the buying and merchandising teams so they get that wider perspective, as I say, not only on what people are buying but which customers and why they're buying what they're buying.

#### David Kohn

And how they're buying it, through which channels, how they're getting there, how they're being retained, the how is just enormous. It's a fantastic potential when you've got the right data set up internally.

#### Mark Pinkerton

Which would be a topic for another time. OK, in terms of how retailers should organize themselves, do we have any thoughts on that? Because my view is that quite a lot of things within an organization can be quite siloed. You've got typically store ops and store-based activity, and you've got digital and e-com as a completely separate entity.

#### David Worby

Entity

#### Mark Pinkerton

What have we learned over the last few years in terms

#### David Kohn

learned

#### Mark Pinkerton

of what works?

#### David Kohn

you're right around the silos there's no getting away from that and you know conventionally we organize ourselves vertically and it can become quite efficient but it's not how customers think about shopping with us. I'm really interested in these roles that have come up over the last few years that seem to be a little bit more horizontal they don't work in one vertical in the organization they need to work across them so you know more of these customer roles of customer experience roles that work across every channel where you're operating I'm really keen to see how that skill set develops and how organizations can put horizontal people through the organization without getting really complicated and matrix and yeah

#### Mark Pinkerton

Yeah, yeah, and I guess there's an inherent challenge there in that many of the people will have come up through digital or store and therefore trying to get them to think customer and cross-channel, multi-channel, whatever you want to call it, is inherently quite hard.

#### Paul McDermott

Yeah, to me, organization structure is a bit of a red herring, and I've seen many, many companies go down the route of thinking they can address their business and cultural problems through changing the way that people are organized. What's critical is to change the culture to being, number one, a more customer-orientated culture, and number two, a more data and evidence- based culture. Exactly how you do that, I haven't really got a great answer for, but I think that's what you've got to be striving for. You've got to be putting an understanding of the customer psychology and their behavior into everybody's jobs.

#### Mark Pinkerton

So what you're saying is that it would depend on the nature of the organisation, its historical situation and maybe even the inherent biases of the leadership team.

#### Paul McDermott

Yes, it may require a champion, it may not. I've seen as many examples fail as I've seen work.

#### Mark Pinkerton

Okay, fine. So, moving on. In terms of where should retailers be investing next?

#### David Kohn

could probably put these things into categories of investment that have been consistent over the last 10, 20, 30 years. But predominantly, you know, data is it's not just a hot topic, it's really fundamentally changing about how business can be effective. So investing in, first of all, technologically, can you bring in data? Can you collect data across these different channels? Store we've been talking about is, you know, is fundamentally difficult and different from an online platform where, by definition, there's much more data. So there's the collection of data and then, secondly, collating, making sense, filtering, analysing that data is going to be really key. Which, how strong AI is going to be, it will still need to be supported by some great people. Yes. So the whole piece around data is... But AI will help...

#### Mark Pinkerton

But AI will help people interpret data more effectively, it will highlight the outliers in a trend and it will allow people to use data in a more effective way I think.

#### Paul McDermott

Yeah, and if I take a slightly different viewpoint on this, I think you've got the analysis-based approach to business development, but for me, there's also a big emotion-based. And I think if I were a multi-channel retailer now, I'd be seriously investing in brand. You have to drive brand awareness. You have to drive brand consideration. Now, you can judge the things that you do, the things that you execute by data, and you can enlighten what you do by your better understanding of the customer. But actually, some of those old skills that people had in the old days of advertising, where you would launch some brand campaign without any real idea, is the big cultural change for me, is no longer thinking of yourself as somebody who just stocks product, but thinking of yourself as somebody who has an idea and a sense of meaning. So for me, I'd be investing heavily in both the sense of how I communicate the brand that I am, and really understanding what are the best marketing channels for me to reach more customers and to bring my brand onto the consideration set.

#### David Kohn

And then, down at the other end of the funnel, what brands and retailers have got to do really well. Once you've acquired a customer, understand who they are, why they came to you, how they came to you,

#### Mark Pinkerton

You

#### David Kohn

and how you're going to keep hold of them.

#### Mark Pinkerton

Yeah and to try and reinforce some of those behaviours. So we talked before offline about using digital to drive people in store and potentially vice versa in ways that very few retailers actually appear to do today. In fact none of us could actually think of anybody we

#### David Kohn

you

#### Mark Pinkerton

know who was doing it. So that's the sort of corollary of having a stronger brand which will get people to visit you but at the same time allowing you to have that conversation with customers and say okay you haven't been to a store why have you not been to a store or how can I make that store attractive to you as a digital customer.

#### David Kohn

And understanding which of those customers that message would really resonate Yes And which ones like to shop online, thank you very much Yes, exactly

#### Mark Pinkerton

Okay so a couple more questions and then we're done. So in terms of how should retailers deliver a big project because a lot of what we're talking about is effectively transformation in one way shape or form and it's in your various job titles you've had Paul. How should a retailer think about delivering a big project because they're fraught aren't they?

#### David Kohn

Yeah, I think first of all there's a real risk in using the word project because there's an inference and there's an end point.

#### Mark Pinkerton

Project. Program.

#### David Kohn

Yeah, so these things really have got, you know, there's a piece of change that you need to do in the retailer and then find a way of how that change can continue because it needs to be endless. Yes. Continuous improvement. Retail projects, programs, they always take longer than you think you're going to take. They always cost more than you think you're going to take. So I think for me, setting out the plan of what you need to, what you need and want to achieve and then being prepared to adapt along that plan is really, really important.

#### Mark Pinkerton

So have a clear strategic intent but be agile with a small A as to what gets delivered precisely

#### David Kohn

of it, precisely when.

#### Mark Pinkerton

when. Absolutely, definitely. And perhaps be a bit more opportunistic.

#### David Kohn

And then within that, old rules still apply.

#### Mark Pinkerton

within.

#### David Kohn

You need great people and you need great partners. Dang it.

#### Paul McDermott

For me, I'm a bit of a sceptic when it comes to big projects. I think retail has a tremendous capacity to think it needs to do big projects when it actually doesn't need to do big projects and the website re-platform is a classic. People get to the point where they think I have to re-platform without really thinking about why do they have to do it. So the single thing I would say here is think very carefully whether you need that big project and map it against doing lots of smaller projects.

#### Mark Pinkerton

Yes, but if you're on Magenta or something and it's come to the end of its life, it's not supported anymore, then clearly you are going to have to re- platform.

#### Paul McDermott

Look, sometimes you are put into business, that's an example where you say, well yes,

#### Mark Pinkerton

That's an example where you say, well, yes, we...

#### Paul McDermott

we do have to do a big project, but I would vouch that of 100 big projects that retailers embark upon, 75 of them were not necessary. Fair enough, fair enough.

#### Mark Pinkerton

So what last words would you have for a retailer in terms of how they can make the most of the on-the-multi-channel opportunity?

#### David Kohn

It's obvious stuff and it's things that most retailers and brands say and it's in their values which is putting the customer first and really being customer- centric. An ethos that I've worked with is in every meeting you have an empty chair and in the empty chair is the customer. The analogy is that you can ask the customer what do you think about that and what would you do if we did that. So being customer-centric is clearly easier said than done but it's pretty fundamental.

#### Paul McDermott

And my sense would be, make sure that everything you do passes the so what test. There's a massive temptation to take on things because it's the latest buzzword or because it's what everybody else seems to be doing. Always ask yourself, so what, what's the real benefit I'm going to get out of this? And what's the real benefit?

#### Mark Pinkerton

The customers come and get out of it.

#### Paul McDermott

Sometimes it's the customer, let's be honest, sometimes it's the customer, sometimes it might be cost, sometimes it might be efficiency, there's got to be a clear and obvious benefit and if there isn't, park it, get rid.

#### Mark Pinkerton

Sometimes it's the customer.

#### Paul McDermott

Even if you've been doing it for 20 years.

#### Mark Pinkerton

Focus on the important things. Okay. Brilliant. Thank you very much.

#### David Worby

Thank you.

#### Mark Pinkerton

Thank you. Thank you.

#### Mark Pinkerton

And thank you to our listeners and I hope you'll join us on the next one.