WHS - Warehouse Group

[Basil]

Speaking of journey's my best mate who lives at West Harbour just rang and got to complaining about the constant traffic queue's at the Westgate offramp of the North Western motorway.  He said his wife had signed up for Costco but the place had been going off absolutely nuts ever since it opened months ago.  Can't get into the place or find a carpark.

Lamented how his wife resorted to going to the local Warehouse at Westgate instead.  Basically, said the place was like a morgue.  I think its clear from the recent sales update that since Costco opened its having an impact and I think they have a few more stores planned in the next year or two as do K Mart.

Nick would do well to spend a LOT more time thinking about rationalising the size of the group's retail footprint and far less time engaging in fantasies of being a mini Amazon aggregator and ESG changemaker.

[KW]

Amazing cutting 18,000 E.

wonder if this is just the start in the on line tech sector.

WHS has an up hill battle coming this year and the end of 2024 result will be very interesting but the SP still might not be a BG eve if it halves...

Its nothing, and its not enough.  For perspective, Amazon hired 800,000 people during the Covid pandemic.  That doubled their workforce.  They currently have 1,600,000 employees.

I think all companies need to take a good look at what Elon Musk has done at Twitter and then a very long look at who they really need to be working at their companies.  I doubt that Twitter is the only one with thousands of employees doing very little, and nothing meaningful.

[winner (n)]

Basil ....as long as the rationalising footprint is strategic' and 'tactical' it'll turn out ok.

Actually quoting Nick from 2017

[KW]

"...we're reviewing our business and challenging ourselves to make smart, sustainable choices on behalf our customers, so we're very cognisant of being part of the solution. How we help make living sustainably easy and affordable for our customers is front of mind. We don't have all the answers but we're on a journey that I'm very committed to personally." 

Customers don't care about sustainability they care about prices, and buying things that dont fall apart after 5 minutes.  People don't have the money to care when they are stressed about their mortgage/rent payments, the 20% food inflation, cost of petrol, and whether or not venturing out to a store is worth catching a virus for.

Companies need to stop pandering to the ESG loonies and start thinking about their customers.  Like the supermarkets that decided off their own bat that "customers" only wanted to buy free range eggs so they werent going to buy colony eggs any more from farmers that had just spent millions on converting to colonies.  Now we have no eggs.

[winner (n)]

Cartoon from a couple of years ago that could have easily represented Nick

You cannot view this attachment.

[Basil]

How they celebrated 40 years in business in November.
The one day paid leave to give back to community per staff member is good but unremarkable as many other organizations do this too but come on Nick I think you are taking "the proverbial" splitting just $40,000 between all the branches to give to charity.  That's absolutely pathetic.  What about adding 10% of your egregiously excessive salary to it and making it $400,000 instead.
https://www.thewarehousegroup.co.nz/application/files/6116/6907/8189/Media_release_The_Warehouse_Group_launches_volunteer_leave_to_mark_40_years_.pdf

[BlackPeter]

Its nothing, and its not enough.  For perspective, Amazon hired 800,000 people during the Covid pandemic.  That doubled their workforce.  They currently have 1,600,000 employees.

I think all companies need to take a good look at what Elon Musk has done at Twitter and then a very long look at who they really need to be working at their companies.  I doubt that Twitter is the only one with thousands of employees doing very little, and nothing meaningful.

You mean every CEO should try to destroy his company as fast as possible as Elon does with Twitter? It is already just a Zombie left and in a year it will be history. Hope twitters creditors have access to Elons other funds.

Elon is clear evidence for the term "smart money" being an oxymoron. If people make money they stay as dumb and evil as they always have been.

[Waltzing]

"Elon Musk has done at Twitter "

thats why stated it might just be the "start".

yep Elon BP should have stuck to rockets and batteries.....

if he pulls this one out of bag it will be a miracle... thingee whatsit

[KW]

You mean every CEO should try to destroy his company as fast as possible as Elon does with Twitter? It is already just a Zombie left and in a year it will be history. Hope twitters creditors have access to Elons other funds.

Elon is clear evidence for the term "smart money" being an oxymoron. If people make money they stay as dumb and evil as they always have been.

Its still operating just fine without all those employees.  Cut your cost base like that, and many tech companies might actually turn a profit. 

[winner (n)]

A few years ago I was at one of Nick's talks to suppliers etc about the future of Warehouse Group.

Besides all the omnichannel blah blah he made mention of bionic companies. A few of us looked at each other and asked what the heck is that guy on.

Maybe Nick still working on this bionic company ......maybe that's why he raves on about this MarketMedia and it's $20m of revenue ......maybe the Google person they have on the Board is helping him.

Here's what BCG say what a bionic company is
https://www.bcg.com/capabilities/digital-technology-data/bionic-company

[Hectorplains]

A few years ago I was at one of Nick's talks to suppliers etc about the future of Warehouse Group.

Besides all the omnichannel blah blah he made mention of bionic companies. A few of us looked at each other and asked what the heck is that guy on.

Maybe Nick still working on this bionic company ......maybe that's why he raves on about this MarketMedia and it's $20m of revenue ......maybe the Google person they have on the Board is helping him.

Here's what BCG say what a bionic company is
https://www.bcg.com/capabilities/digital-technology-data/bionic-company

It brings to mind Lee Majors as the bionic man, in the Six Million Dollar Man and how every little boy wanted so much to be Steve Austin.  Maybe Nick still does and he's kept that dream alive, bless.  Unfortunately, with where WHS share price sits you can't even call him the Six Dollar Fifty Man. 

Here's a neat Kiwi short from 2009 for another wet day - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxBpqMvGt-Q&ab_channel=cinemaetcie

[BlackPeter]

Its still operating just fine without all those employees.  Cut your cost base like that, and many tech companies might actually turn a profit.

Did you had a recent look at their books? Where exactly did you see profits? Crushing debts, income sharply down and customers running for the hills. Sure, the amount of conspiracy theory peddlers and right wing idiots on twitter did increase, but the problem for Twitter is - they can't feed on nor live of hate ... any business needs money as income stream.

[Hectorplains]

Its nothing, and its not enough.  For perspective, Amazon hired 800,000 people during the Covid pandemic.  That doubled their workforce.  They currently have 1,600,000 employees.

I think all companies need to take a good look at what Elon Musk has done at Twitter and then a very long look at who they really need to be working at their companies.  I doubt that Twitter is the only one with thousands of employees doing very little, and nothing meaningful.

Seems Like Maccas read your post!  They've announced  "tough conversations" to "evaluate roles and staffing levels", with layoffs from April.  This is despite "Systemwide sales" (revenues from franchised restaurants and those owned by the fast-food chain) having risen by $20bn to $120bn a year since 2019. 

[Mousehold]

It brings to mind Lee Majors as the bionic man, in the Six Million Dollar Man and how every little boys wanted so much to be Steve Austin.  Maybe Nick still does and he's kept that dream alive, bless.  Unfortunately, with where WHS share price sits you can't even call him the Six Dollar Fifty Man.

But when we pretended to be Steve Austin in the playground we would do the exaggerated slow running movement - maybe that's the part The Warehouse have taken from being bionic, i.e. the slow bit.

[Waltzing]

Oh we set up a test on the 5th...

online purchase T7... 3 sets of Sunglasses , blue on white rims.. Tifosi Vero, skycloud....

see what turns up amd when....