Barry Blamire, Managing director, John Lewis Newcastle

Nov 29 2010 by Chris Knox, The Journal

As retailers get ready for the busiest time of year, Christopher Knox, takes a seasonal trip to meet Barry Blamire, the managing director of one of the North East's biggest department stores.

CHRISTMAS 2009 saw winners and losers on the high street in equal measure as ruthless competition intensified in an increasingly tight market.

But there was much rejoicing at department store chain John Lewis in January after seeing year-on-year sales soar by 12.7% to £500.76m over the festive period last year – twice the average for the sector.

Overseeing record sales at the chain’s Newcastle store in Eldon Square was managing director Barry Blamire, who puts recent successes down to the company’s long-held reputation for quality.

He said: “During a recession people revert back to retailers that they trust, which is why we continue to work hard to develop brand loyalty among our customers.

“We have an extremely loyal customer base, which I believe will help us to achieve even better sales this Christmas.”

Having worked at no less than seven John Lewis stores around the country, it is clear that Blamire certainly has some experience in this field, experience that belies his relatively young age of 36.

Growing up in the rural surrounds of Endmoor, near Kendal in Cumbria, Blamire was keen to begin his career in retail at an early age, setting up a fruit and veg stall when he was 13.

He said: “I ran a stall in Kendal every Saturday for about four years, which was really hard work. I didn’t do all the shouting you normally associate with fruit and veg traders, but I did enjoy the interaction with people and developed a good rapport with shoppers.

“I think getting a job when you’re a teenager is a good thing, as getting a bit of money behind you when you’re young means that you aren’t completely reliant on your parents.

“It definitely helped me to build up my character, although working for £1 an hour at that age would probably be classed as cruelty these days.”

After completing his GCSEs and A-Levels at Queen Elizabeth School, at Kirkby Lonsdale in Lancashire, Blamire received his first taste of the North East when he took on a degree in business management at Newcastle University.

He says: “I really enjoyed my time at Newcastle University. I guess it was a big step for me coming from such a small rural town to a thriving city centre.

“My parents just drove me up, dumped me there and drove back home. But it was the same for everybody else and pretty soon I made a number of friends.”

Although he took full advantage of the student lifestyle, living with three friends in the Sandyford area of Newcastle, Blamire ensured that his free time was spent constructively and used each of his summer holidays getting as much work experience as he could.

He remembers: “I spent the first summer holiday working at a paper manufacturer down in Lancashire, the next one on a summer placement scheme with Marks & Spencer and the last one working at Northern Electric in Newcastle. Although all were interesting, I knew that retail was for me.”

After sending his CV to hundreds of companies Blamire received a number of job offers, including one with Edinburgh-based savings and investments business Standard Life and a place on the graduate training scheme of supermarket giant Tesco.

However, unsure about which road to take, Blamire waited to see if a better offer came along. Luckily for him it did in the shape of the John Lewis graduate programme, which soon saw him working in the haberdashery department at its store in Newcastle.

Blamire said: “My friends were still studying at university by the time I got my placement with John Lewis, so I was still living with them in Sandyford.

“I got ribbed a bit every time I had to get up in the morning and put my suit on for work, but I would just remind them of how much more money I had.”

It wasn’t long before he was moving to other departments at the Eldon Square store, with the graduate landing the role of section manager on furnishing fabrics as part of his training.

He said: “That’s the great thing about John Lewis. It provides a huge amount of support for those keen to move up within the business.

“It was certainly difficult to begin with as I was in my early 20s and was having to manage people that had been working for the company for about 30 years.

“However, I found that there was no resentment and that most people were all too willing to give me guidance and support.”

After completing his training, Blamire applied for the role of department manager at the shop’s stationery and Christmas stationery department.

Missing out on the role provided Blamire with his first real disappointment, but it would be this missed opportunity that would make way for a 10-year tour of the UK, courtesy of John Lewis.

His first departure saw him take up the role of department manager of schoolwear and children’s shoes at the company’s site at Milton Keynes.

The role would soon present him with a number of new challenges. “I always believe that mistakes are healthy and part of the learning process. One that comes to mind was when we landed work to supply a large number of schools with uniforms in the local area,” he says.

“I was just finding my feet at the time and it was such a huge order. As a result I managed to get a few wrong and ended up sending out the wrong coloured boater or not enough kilts. It was certainly a lesson learned, particularly when I had to answer to some pretty angry school teachers.”

However, this didn’t put his employer off, and he moved up to bigger and better roles throughout the firm’s 29-strong chain of stores, taking on management responsibilities in Kent, Manchester, Liverpool and Peterborough.

He says: “Although I was disappointed when I didn’t get the job in Newcastle, I definitely think that things worked out for the best as I was able to gain a much greater degree of experience from managing departments throughout the UK.

“Although the shops sell the same things and are furnished in the same style, they serve different catchment areas and are based in different retail environments, which helped give me a range of perspectives on the retail industry.

“While some of the sites were doing really well, such as the store in the Bluewater shopping centre in Kent, others had yet to be modernised, such as the one in Liverpool – which didn’t even have escalators, which was a real challenge.”

After impressing the board of directors, Blamire was asked to join the firm at its head office in London as part of a one-year secondment, after which he applied for the role of managing director at the Newcastle store, following the decision of its former boss to head up the Cribbs Causeway store in Bristol.

With only two years under his belt at the Newcastle site, he has already had to make some tough decisions.

Blamire, who now lives in Hexham with his wife and two children, said: “One challenge we’ve faced over the last couple of years was that we carry a very high fixed cost as we employ 750 people, virtually all permanent contracts, which equates to a pay bill of around £10m a year.

“As our sales fluctuate, so do our profits, which meant taking some costs out of the business. Programmes have included simplifying and centralising some of our processes, which has meant redundancies. We’ve probably lost 20 staff over the last two years.”

However, the firm has not held back on investing in the site, with £2.8m used to upgrade women’s wear and accessories over the summer, with refurbishments to its beauty department expected next year.

The company has continued to trade well but its unusual business model has received more attention over recent weeks.

John Lewis is owned by a trust on behalf of all its 17,000 employees – known as partners – who have a say in the running of the business and receive a share of annual profits, which is usually a significant addition to their salary.

With profits before tax jumping from £279.6m to £389m in its last financial year, the business model rewards its staff for their hard work, an incentive that has helped to retain some staff at the Newcastle branch for most of their working lives.

The company has been in talks with ministers to see how its business model can be used as a blueprint for other businesses and organisations as the Government looks to build a recovery around the private sector.

Blamire said: “The Government is keen to find out more about what this type of business model means for us.

“It clearly has benefits and has helped us shape a very dedicated and loyal workforce.”

With extended late-night openings introduced across the city centre in November, John Lewis Newcastle has enjoyed a more fruitful run-up to the Christmas season this year.

Although the company expects a bumpy ride in 2011 – with VAT to rise to 20% – Blamire is confident that it can become an even more prominent fixture in the North East.

He said: “We are looking for another record-breaking Christmas this year, some of our new products flying off the shelves, particularly in the area of technology and gaming.

“Even though there is a huge amount of competition on the high street, we have managed to maintain our hugely popular offering.

“One thing that out customers appreciate is the clean lines and de-cluttered look of our shop floor, which means they can find what they’re looking for really easily.

“Also, we don’t play music, which means that both our customers and staff won’t have to listen to Cliff Richard every 45 minutes this Christmas.