如何用策略管理工具来评估以下策略。

如何用策略管理工具来评估以下策略。

Daunt’s strategy
The new managing director did not waste any time in developing a new strategy for the firm.
Even before the purchase of the chain from HMV in June 2011 it was clear that there had been
little investment in Waterstones and many of the changes made by the previous regime had
alienated core customers by focussing on special offers and popular titles such as celebrity
biographies. Some in the industry felt the bookseller had lost its soul as it pursued a lowest
common denominator approach with discounting the norm and publishers choices dominating
the front-of-house displays in the shops.
Daunt’s literary background and experience of successfully running a more niche operation led
him to focus on the customer experience. With Mamut’s financial support, he was able to start
investing in refurbishing the stores. By the end of 2012 some 40 shops had been overhauled with
a further 60 earmarked for 2013. The new layouts contained larger tables, better lighting, wifi,
and, in some cases, catering through the creation of Café W outlets. The initial impact of the
changes seemed very positive with Daunt reporting to the Bookseller in October 2013 that
refurbished stores had increased revenue of between 5 and 10% on average and some, such as
the Brighton, St Albans and Aberdeen stores, reporting year-on-year increases of between 50 and
100%. Some of the larger increases in revenue stemmed from closing duplicate shops in the
same town or city. The firm closed 6 stores in 2012 at a cost of £2.1 million.
The new strategy also included a return to the old style logo. The lower case lettering put in
place by design agency Venture Three in 2010 was replaced with a capital W and the
Waterstones name in Baskerville font. Daunt saw this as reflecting the iconic nature of the brand
and giving it more authority and confidence. The apostrophe between the “e” and the “s” was
also removed to make the name more suitable for URLs and email addresses.
However, the need to operate the chain more efficiently was also part of Daunt’s plan and to
achieve this he set about re-organising the company. At the beginning of 2013 the firm’s losses
reached £37.3 million (see Exhibits 7, 8 & 9 for summary financial statements). The managing
director announced that there would be far reaching changes to the way the business was run
which would reduce the number of regional managers needed. Shops would be part of clusters
which meant that fewer regional managers would manage more outlets. In May 2013,
consultation began at local level with over 500 of the company’s managers about changes to the
structure within the stores. General manager, branch manager, assistant manager and deputy
manager posts would all be abolished to be replaced by a single new role of bookshop manager.
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The change would save money, but more importantly, according to Daunt, it would put the
emphasis on shop-floor selling, engaging with the books and the customers. Many publishers
appeared to welcome the move but Waterstones’ staff were less enthusiastic and by July 2013
more than 60 managers had resigned from the firm rather than go through the process of
applying for the new roles. Some of those interviewed by the Bookseller said they were
disgusted by the process and that the chain was losing many of their most creative and
experienced managers. The new bookshop managers were expected to “prioritise service above
everything else”, “lead the team of booksellers to deliver consistently high levels of service,
expert advice and hand-selling” as well as “provide regular feedback to the shop team”. The
focus on bookselling was also supported by a partnership with the University of Derby to create
the Waterstones Academy which would deliver the UK’s first professional qualification in
bookselling. Daunt’s experience of lecturing at La Scuola Librari Italiani in Italy had given him
the idea to set up the Academy in recognition that many of the attributes needed for bookselling
were graduate-level skills.
By the beginning of October 2013, the changes to the staffing were largely complete leaving
about 3,500 staff working there, but the firm had lost some 200 experienced managers and
morale amongst employees had hit “rock bottom” according to some sources at the company.
This was in stark contrast to the intended outcome of the changes. According to Daunt, the new
roles were intended to support a move away from the centralised system that had grown up under
HMV’s ownership.  This had involved every shop stocking the same books whatever its location
and using “planograms” which gave strict instructions as to how shop staff should lay out display
tables and other point of sale materials. Daunt also ended the promotional deals with many of the
publishers. Under the new structure more local diversity would be encouraged with the bookshop
managers having much more autonomy than their predecessors in terms of the books they bought
and how they displayed the titles. The firm’s distribution system would also be reconfigured to
allow for this diversity and the Hub set up under HMV dismantled. However, this did not please
all of the remaining staff at the firm and the situation had worsened by the end of November
2013 with the loss of four of its key buyers from the central team and Ros Hines, the marketing
director, who also decided to leave the company.
Daunt remained upbeat about the prospects for the firm and was sanguine about the reorganisation claiming that the pain would be worth it in the long run. Losses at Waterstones
reduced to £23 million in 2013 and the chain was even able to open new bookshops in places
such as Blackburn in Lancashire and Ringwood, on the edge of the New Forest (see Exhibit 10
for Waterstones shop locations). A new website was planned for July 2014 which would sell
self-published titles for the first time. The website would also make use of the chain’s
relationships with authors that often came to their bookshops for signings and the expertise of
their booksellers. Daunt’s aim was not to compete directly with Amazon in terms of quick, cheap
and efficient supply of books, but to provide a more “curated” experience both on-line and in the
bookshops. There would be an emphasis on helping customers discover new books and authors.
In terms of physical bookstores, the chain remained larger than its high street rivals (see Exhibit
11 for details of competitors).