Kingfisher boss praises C-level team for efficiency drive

Ian Cheshire, group chief executive of retail group Kingfisher has praised the initiatives of his management team as the company today reported a 50 per cent rise in profits, up to £566 million for the year to January 2010. The two UK businesses; B&Q the DIY retailer and Screwfix, reported a rise in profits of 64.5 per cent, whilst the French division reported profits up by 3.2 per cent. Talking to the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 Cheshire kept to the script of the company release that “self-help initiatives drove growth in profit and cash generation from the ‘Delivering Value’ plan.” In March 2008 during the worst of the credit crisis the Kingfisher group announced plans to centralise its IT and management structure based on its three main markets which now operate as divisions; UK, France and International. Kingfisher had operated a decentralised management structure based on brands such as B&Q and Kingfisher. Richard Collins, IT head at Kingfisher has moved his division into the property and staff management resourced under the revisions. Cheshire praised management “across the board, all teams were lowering costs,” he told Today. Kingfisher is now looking to extend the integration of its trade online and catalogue business Screwfix into B&Q stores with its Tradepoint plan which has been successfully piloted.