DGAP-News

GERRY WEBER's realignment programme proceeding to plan in FY 2015/16 - Seite 2

FIT4GROWTH realignment programme

The FIT4GROWTH realignment programme, which comprises four elements, was implemented as planned in the past fiscal year and will be continued with great determination. In the current financial year, the focus will be placed on becoming even faster and more efficient and on realising a more modern and higher-quality presentation of the GERRY WEBER core brand, in particular.

'Optimise the Retail operations'

In the first year of the FIT4GROWTH programme, 75 of the planned 103 stores of the GERRY WEBER, TAIFUN and SAMOON brands were closed. The remaining stores will be closed as planned by mid-2017.

The acceleration of the digitalisation strategy plays a key role in improving the brand experience and addressing the individual customer target groups in a more personalised manner. The product presentation in the GERRY WEBER online shop was redesigned from scratch and aligned with the different customer requirements of the individual brands. Moreover, HALLHUBER introduced "Click&Collect" as well as "Mobile Ordering" in all German stores to further push ahead with the integration of the physical stores and the online shop. The Group will further expand and accelerate its digitalisation activities in the current financial year. In this context, the relaunch of the GERRY WEBER online shop in spring 2017 will play an important role. The relaunch of the HALLHUBER online shop will follow in autumn 2017. In the long term, we aim to fully integrate all distribution channels for a holistic and consistent brand and shopping experience.

'Adjust structures and processes'

To increase the effectiveness and shrink the cost base, all material business processes and workflows were analysed in the course of the year. This led to an inevitable headcount reduction of roughly 200 jobs at the headquarters in Halle/Westphalia.

'Strengthen the Wholesale operations'

To support the Wholesale partners, the GERRY WEBER Group has defined and already started to implement various measures. The new partnership schemes not only help to improve the availability and presentation of the GERRY WEBER collections at the point of sale but also improve the level of service provided to our Wholesale partners.