National Accounts & Major Retailers

National Accounts & Major Retailers — B&Q, Topps Tiles, Travis Perkins

Managing national accounts at blue-chip retailer level is a different discipline to most other commercial roles. The stakes are high, the buyers are experienced and well informed, and the margin for error is small. With revenue responsibility of circa £20m across accounts including B&Q, Topps Tiles and Travis Perkins, this period of my career gave me a commercial education that I have drawn on in every senior role since.

I inherited these accounts from a predecessor, which meant the relationships and the commercial history came with them. Getting up to speed quickly, understanding the dynamics of each account and establishing my own credibility with heads of buying and category controllers was the immediate priority. These are not relationships that reward a slow start.

The scope of the work was broad. Day to day it covered everything from pricing and promotional planning through to category management, range development and joint business planning. At its most demanding it involved navigating commercial disputes and performance issues  conversations that require both commercial rigour and the ability to hold a constructive relationship under pressure simultaneously.

The central commercial challenge across all of these accounts was margin. Major retailers are skilled and persistent in their pursuit of better pricing, and maintaining a position that worked for the business whilst remaining competitive enough to protect and grow the range required constant discipline and a clear understanding of where the lines were. That tension  between what the retailer wants and what the business needs is one that sharpens your commercial thinking quickly.

Across the accounts I grew revenue, secured new range listings, and successfully defended the range against competitor activity on more than one occasion. That last point is worth noting in major retail, keeping a listing is sometimes as hard as winning it in the first place, and doing so requires an ongoing demonstration that your range is earning its space.

What this experience gave me, more than anything else, was a rounded and deeply practical commercial grounding. An understanding of pricing strategy and how margin is built and eroded. A way of thinking about category and range that starts with the customer and the channel rather than the product. And a clear sense of how buyers make decisions and what genuinely influences them. Those three things, developed at this level and at this scale, have informed the way I have approached every commercial leadership role I have held since.