Straight-talking Spinneys Dubai boss Jannie Holtzhausen believes in keeping things simple...
If you were an executive leading a company that could boast an almost ten-fold increase in its turnover and profits in the last decade, you could perhaps be forgiven for letting it go to your head.
Not so Jannie Holtzhausen, CEO of well-known retailer Spinneys Dubai, who hasn't let his firm's impressive expansion from seven stores in 2001 to 54 today allow him to lose sight of some key fundamentals.
"I am very clear in what I do. I sell baked beans. And chickens. And apples. I'm not running an accounting business, I am not in the IT business, I am not in the marketing business - we sell baked beans," he says. But surely the firm's management can take the credit for its recent rude health?
"I would like to say that our management did that, but the only thing our management did well was that we didn't do things that were stupid," he says, somewhat modestly. The way Holtzhausen tells it, the company - which recently celebrated 50 years in the Emirates - merely surfed the wave of the country's growing economy over the last decade.
But dig a little deeper and its clear that Spinneys is reaping the rewards of a lot of hard work. Holtzhausen is in the habit of pulling the financials of established retail giants like Tesco and WalMart off the internet and taking a hard look at his own firm's performance in relation to their numbers. That's not to say he is in awe of his larger competitors. He says when he read what Lars Olofsson - the under-fire chief executive of Carrefour - came up with to revive the French retailer, "it took me two seconds to say he is going to waste a lot of his shareholders' money and he is not going to get it right".
So what is to stop his own firm embarking on a similarly misguided course of action? "We know exactly what we are good at - and exactly what we are not good at," he says. That begs the question: what does he think the firm is good at?
"We don't pretend to be a discounter. We don't pretend to be the cheapest in town, but we do set ourselves up to have consistently good customer service."
If you are what he calls a 'discounter' store, life is easy, he says. You just need to make sure your chickens are cheaper than the other guy. But what if, like Spinneys, you decide to make the quality of your product your selling point? That's a little harder to measure.
"We can have arguments for days on end about how much fat you trim off a steak before you put it on the shelf," Holtzhausen tells 7DAYS. You get the impression he is never happier than when prowling the aisles of the firm's stores. He's a stickler for presentation. Turning up to a store in the morning to find the doors open for business, but everything inside not quite 'just so' is enough, he admits, to send him "ballistic". A third of a store's stock can leave the shelves during a day's trading - and it's up to Spinneys staff to fill the gaps without you noticing.
So what next for this fast-growing retailer? Holtzhausen freely admits that the UAE's slowdown means he can't open another 50 stores in short term. Instead, the firm is looking to branch out into producing more of its own fresh food from newly constructed facilities within the UAE - rather than having to rely on costly imports. Soon Spinneys could be selling desserts, ready meals and other items freshly prepared at its very own plants within the UAE - with the aim of passing on the cost savings to its customers in the process.
It marks something of a departure from straight retail, and was something Holtzhausen was initially hesitant to pursue, given his laser-like focus on simply selling what's on the shelves. But despite the growing sophistication of his company's operations, ask him in 10 years' time what his business is, and he'll doubtless reply: "I sell baked beans."
LIVE AND LEARN
Name: Jannie Holtzhausen
Firm: SPINNEYS DUBAI
Position: CEO
Q Who has been the biggest influence on your career?
A One of my first bosses, Basil Weyers. A calm and wise manager - and human.
Q Best day of your career?
A I truly cannot recall a day that was so special that I remember it above many other special days. My first salary cheque is still up there! My time at Spinneys has been the most rewarding in my career. I've worked for larger businesses, with arguably more responsibility, that were not as rewarding.
Q Looking back, is there anything you would do differently?
A I would definitely have spent more time with my wife and children.
Q How do you relax?
A Visit stores! I love to read and listen to classical and jazz music.
Q What are your remaining goals?
A Helping young people not to make the same mistakes I did, and to make Spinneys a truly great retail brand.
Q What advice do you have for someone looking to get into your industry?
A Be prepared to work long hours, have an eye for detail and never lose your sense of humour or the common touch....
© 7Days 2012
