Kmart chief says the retailer is “failing” customers and will only reach sales targets if the team remains “dissatisfied”

Kmart is posting big wins in a challenging retail environment, but managing director Ian Bailey has marked “dissatisfaction” as a driving force as he leads the company into the next stage of its growth.

And it’s an approach that one leadership expert says SMEs can learn from when setting up their businesses for future success.

Inside Retail reports the discount department store chief told a Property Council of Australia event in Sydney last week that customers want “more information from us” and a “super shopping experience”, and Kmart is “failing to deliver”.

This is despite Kmart recently posted strong revenue growth for its parent company Wesfarmers. In 2017, earnings at Kmart increased 17.7%, to $553 million, in what then group chief executive Richard Goyder described as a “very strong result”.

However, Bailey says there’s still plenty of work to do within the business, and things will slide backwards unless there’s constant striving for service improvement.

He told the event that if Kmart wants to post 10% sales growth over the next year, the retailer would have to up its performance in terms of product offer and service improvements in the year ahead. Read more

Emma Koehn - Smart Company - 19 Feb 2018