Strategy
A customer-focused business model
Our business model is a competitive advantage and a key differentiator in a market where our peers have separated their furniture retail and financial services businesses and centralised credit collections. We believe it is the most appropriate for our market and is integral to the sustainability of our consistent performance over many years.
We operate a decentralised, store-based business model where all aspects of the relationship with the customer are managed by the staff in the stores. This customer-centric model, which has been consistently applied since the inception of the business, is based on the premise that the selling of furniture and the provision of credit are inter-dependant. Being a store-based model also ensures that long-term relationships are developed with customers and this, together with our integrated credit and marketing strategies, results in a high level of repeat business.
The only functions that are not managed at a store level are the credit approval and granting processes, which are operated centrally to ensure that credit risk policies are consistently applied across the group and to all customers, removing any subjectivity in the credit granting process. Credit applications are submitted by the stores to head office where industry-leading technology and proprietary applications, together with application risk and behavioural scorecards, are used to determine the creditworthiness of a customer. Decisions on credit applications are then relayed to stores within an average of just 9 seconds.
Employing a store-based collections model is very effective as the direct relationship through monthly contact with customers provides an early indication of payment difficulties.
