Phil Smith

I’ve been in retail nearly all of my life," Phil Smith, the CEO of Blooms The Chemist admits. "I’ve had a very long career working in department stores and have had all types of roles; in merchandise, marketing, human resources, and operations. My last position was as Managing Director for Myer. I then went to API and was one of the founding partners of the Priceline Pharmacy brand."

After a quick foray into the apparel category, trying to save the Fletcher Jones brand, Phil then joined the Blooms The Chemist board four years ago. When the company lost its CEO rather suddenly, Phil stepped into the breach, albeit temporarily. "I stepped in to do an interim role for a year, but I’m now in my fourth year! When I looked around the stores I saw big opportunities and terrific potential. I saw massive potential in the productivity models — models based on how to maximise sales and gross profits per square metre, and on how to maximise the return on every dollar of stock invested into the business. We’ve had three years of double digit growth across the group so all of those opportunities are coming to fruition."

Getting the culture right

Changing the culture has been a big part of that success and Phil has been transmitting his vision to the rest of the company. "Culture is an absolutely critical component and how to instill it within your employees is just as important. It comes from everything we do and everything we say. I guess it’s the old cliché of ‘walking the talk’. We conduct employee attitude surveys to understand what it is like to work around here and determine what things need to be tweaked and adjusted."

"Our future will be determined not by government or regulatory bodies, but by the customer." – Phil Smith

With the team aligned, the current focus now is on the consumer and the marketplace. "The main area of focus is always the customer," Phil explains. "And moving the business to a customer centric, customer-first culture, where we measure — through research — what our customer’s needs are is crucial. We will strive to consistently meet those needs. Our future will be determined not by government or regulatory bodies, but by the customer."

Not settling after back to back wins

As well as developing a national brand beyond the strongholds of New South Wales and Queensland, Phil is driving Blooms The Chemist to further differentiate itself from its competitors. This was recognised by its recent back-to-back win of the Canstar awards; a market research-based organisation that focuses on consumer feedback. Phil wants more though: "It’s nice to win that back to back, but frankly the gap is not quite big enough for us at the moment," he quips. "We need to broaden that gap."

Focus on the marketplace and the consumer

The two main ways he believes the company can grow that differentiation is through its nimbleness in the marketplace, and its analysis of product ranges. "I honestly think it is the focus on the marketplace and consumer that will differentiate us. To be nimble means not just looking at our competitors, but tracking all the trends across other retail sectors too. We also want to focus on our merchandise range to ensure we know exactly what it is costing us. I don’t think there are too many of our competitors that can track every square metre and every SKU across all of their stores, but we certainly do all of that."

Loving the challenge of change

Furthermore, developing relationships with suppliers has been crucial to recent successes. Performance agreements have been put in place and partners are able to grow with Blooms The Chemist. "It’s about an honest and open approach, and our suppliers understanding we’re here for the long haul. We expect our partners to be as pleased as we are with our recent growth over the past two years and I think it’s fair to say they are."

Phil loves the challenges that come with change and he is helping his people to adopt new mindsets and skills. "It’s a big challenge to get folk to believe and understand that our future will be determined by the customer. We’ve got a long way to go, but we’re on our way. Quite frankly, I love it.

"Everyone likes to be on a winning team, and we’re winning."