Insight & strategy ge len s e c hal cer to c Spen udien rs ped nd t a ve hel ks a rge isco has ar w ta s d rch of M a ne Simm e ns sea Re eptio den s Jane c a d per g an iler, n eta r thi clo r the fo T he greatest strength of Marks and Spencer (M&S), widely regarded as the bellwether of the British high street, has arguably been its greatest weakness too: everyone knows it, nearly all households shop in it, but it has historically tried to be all things to all people. For example, around 22 million people nearly one third of the UK population shop for clothing and homeware at M&S every year. Some of them, however, do so only once. M&S is in the middle of a turnaround programme designed to make itself more relevant to more people and, crucially, to persuade customers to shop with it more frequently and across its considerable range. This has involved addressing perceptions that while the food is fabulous, clothing and to a lesser extent its homewares is dull. The retail sector took a battering during the pandemic lockdowns of 2020, but M&S capitalised on the sharp drop in footfall by focusing more closely on its turnaround strategy. Nowhere was this attention more important than in customer insight, which embarked on its own transformation in the spring of 2020. Paul Burditt, consumer insight manager in clothing and home (C&H), explains: We had more time to think very carefully about how we were structured and what our roles should be, in order to contribute in the most effective way to helping the business to develop its strategies to meet the objectives of the overarching five-year plan. The new customer insight team for C&H launched at the beginning of 2021 and embarked on a programme 30 Impact ISSUE 40 2022_pp30-33 I&S M&S.indd 30 13/12/2022 11:38