In 2009 Marc Bolland left Morrisons to become boss of Marks and Spencer. The stock market celebrated the appointment by pushing M&S shares up by 5% (implying they thought the new boss was worth £250 million). City analysts queued up to praise Bolland, describing him as ‘very successful at Morrisons’ and having ‘achieved the goal of restoring Morrisons to a serious contender as a supermarket titan’.
Fast forward to summer 2014 and it is hard to find anyone willing to say anything good about Bolland. In his 5 years at Marks and Spencer the business has gone nowhere and it is clear that the legacy he left at Morrisons was a poor one. Morrisons managed to miss the two most important strategies in modern grocery: online and smaller convenience stores. Morrisons’ mid-market positioning was also vulnerable to a squeeze from Aldi and Lidl on price and Waitrose and M&S on quality and innovation.
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