Aherns evolution complete

ROBYN Ahern took a job in the family business, department store Aherns, to earn some money to finance a bit of overseas travel.

But her initial six-month stint blossomed into a retail career spanning three decades, during which time she became the company’s managing director, responsible for more than 1,100 employees.

Ms Ahern and her family sold the business for $29 million to David Jones in 2001 after 75 years of operation.

Ms Ahern believes Aherns’ evolution was an important factor in its longevity.

“In the old days the department store was an emporium where traders bought and sold, but we moved from being a department store for all to one that had a defined target customer,” she said.

Servicing those customers required a good team of retail buyers, supply chain management, with a focus on margins.

“You need to know what people want but there is no point selling something that you can’t make money on,” Ms Ahern said.

“We always said you have to match products to people profitably.

“It’s a special skill to buy and sell.”

Ms Ahern said supply chain management was a critical compo-nent of retailing.

“How do you get what people want on the shelf more of the time and more cost effectively,” she said.

“Woolworths, for example, has to make sure there’s always milk in the fridge; managing that process is really important.

“The bulk of our sales came from stock that was less than two weeks old but that didn’t cover all the sizes of singlets so you had to have fresh stock coming in all the time and not run out of the core things.”

Ms Ahern said managing that process became more difficult in periods of economic downturn, however a disciplined approach to business could result in profits even in the toughest of times. 

“Trying to make a profit in the tough times is about managing costs so you can react to customers’ changing needs,” she said.

Ms Ahern said retailers needed to focus on the people in the business.

“Retail is a people business. I think for us, being a family business, we had the ethics and leadership that has now become flavour of the month but we had a head start and led by example,” she told WA Business News.

“When you are CEO you don’t meet a lot of customers and when you do it’s usually the difficult ones; but how you treat them is very important, you have to show respect for the customer.

“We were very open with our people. We had mums working for us and we encouraged them to go to sports days or other commitments. We would rather them take the day off than having someone call in sick and having to deal with it [at the] last minute. If you work with your people you will have a better business.

“We were very early in introducing induction training; now everyone does it, but it was quite innovative in our day and we had a low staff turnover.”

Ms Ahern said overseas travel was an increasingly important part of business, particularly when securing deals with international suppliers was concerned. 

“We went overseas twice a year but the buyers went two or three times a year,” she said.

“Getting exclusive arrangements was becoming a more difficult task because the suppliers would want ever-increasing quantities; you had to buy minimums but they kept going up.

“People thought Perth was Sydney and I don’t think we’d mastered that by the end.

“If we had to buy so much of it then it wasn’t worth it to us. We couldn’t stock Armani because of the volumes, and that’s a challenge for a medium-sized business.”

But while Aherns couldn’t order volumes due to size, that size helped it compete against major rival Myer, because it could react more quickly to a change in the market, Ms Ahern said.

“We could react faster because we made the decisions from here.”

Matching the competition was only a good move, however if it was something the business’s customers wanted.

“They might offer something your customer wants and you might follow it, but if they don’t then you wouldn’t, so you always have to refer back to your customer base.”

ROBYN AHERN

• Staying fresh and relevant to consumers kept Aherns at the forefront of retailing for more than 75 years.
• Business motto – match products to people profitably.
• Retailers need good supply chain management.
• Retail owners should show good leadership and respect for the customers and employees.
• Work with your employees.
• Keep an eye on the competition but always remember what your customers want.

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• Wine tasters (small wine glasses)
• Pilsner beer glasses
• Champagne flutes
• Noodle boxes
• Red wine glasses
• Tumblers (various)
• Mini measures
• Cocktail glasses
• Bottle stoppers
• Soda spoons

* Garden City store 2004