Following a major structural change to combine its UK brands, Currys was unsure how to combine its business processes – and also needed help improving its aftersales process. The company turned to BearingPoint, which embedded a team of experts with the client to help get the most out of the transformation.

Currys is an omnichannel retailer of technology products and services, employing over 32,000 people and operating through 830 stores in eight different countries. In 2021, the group consolidated its various brands – Carphone Warehouse, Team Knowhow, Currys PC World and Dixons Carphone – under one name in the UK – creating the country’s largest electronics retailer, with 26% market share.

The change came with its challenges, though. Currys’ brands had previously operated on their own terms, so suddenly the combined entity needed a holistic view of its combined entity. At the same time, it needed to streamline its customer experience – something which it was spending a lot of resources trying to understand and improve. At this point, Currys’ leadership decided the time was right to bring in external expertise.

Chris Stroud, director of customer management for Currys Group, recalls, “We spent an awful lot of effort and money looking at how we can improve our aftersales journey from a colleague and customer perspective, to be more efficient, and successful. We also looked at our business architecture. We’re made of many different companies. PC World, Carphone, Dixons and Currys itself. So our business architecture model was built within those businesses. When we brought in BearingPoint, they helped us redesign our business infrastructure to a single model – helping us understand any time that we change, how it will impact us right down the value chain, and that’s something we’ve never had before.”

BearingPoint’s relationship with Currys goes back to 2017, and the consultancy has worked in a number of very different areas with the business since then. This includes engagements to build a new business architecture approach, methodology and capability, for the business.

Aftersales

In 2022, Currys asked BearingPoint to help with its ‘aftersales’ experience and business processes. After completing an initial diagnostic phase, which identified significant opportunities to reduce costs, increase efficiency, and deliver an improved aftersales experience for its customers, BearingPoint was asked to complete a further project to identify and size specific initiatives that could be conducted by Currys to enable them to reduce avoidable costs and create scalable platforms to drive additional aftersales revenue.

Stuart Higgins, a BearingPoint partner specialising in consumer goods and retail, explains, “We have been working for their aftersales area, around delivery and installation, trying to understand how we can help to improve customer service and reduce the cost of the operation. I think on this particular project around after sales, that was a great example of how we can bring to bear a multifunctional team to work with the Curry guys in delivering an excellent result.”

Bringing in an international team from Norway and France to supplement its UK professionals, BearingPoint completed an objective review of the delivery network and aftersales service operations to identify quick wins and longer term initiatives with the aim to reduce costs, improve employee satisfaction and build customer loyalty through the delivery of enhanced aftersales services. A programme of site visits and interviews with key operations team members was also conducted, combined with a review of the best practice processes across retail and wider service industries.

The various opportunities and process improvements recognised as part of the review were further qualified with Currys service operations leaders and heads of department to assess their impact and feasibility before translating into To-Be Process maps and actionable recommendations with detailed project definitions and benefits qualification. Meanwhile, BearingPoint’s experts partnered with Currys teams to help them understand how they could implement changes within their own aftersales teams to improve its services and reduce costs identifying quick wins and longer term transformation projects.

“When working with clients such as Currys, we try to embed ourselves in the client environment,” Higgins adds. “We work closely with their teams to get a thorough understanding of their business, while bringing our expertise in. We focus on change and transformation, so we try when we’re delivering our projects to impart knowledge exchange to our client teams with the aim of making the change that we’re recommending sustainable within their businesses.”

Business architecture

BearingPoint followed this up by examining a six-step approach to streamline Currys’ business architecture model. Initially the focus was to engage with various stakeholders across the business to identify the core capabilities required for the business to function effectively, this translated into a business capability map with over 80 capabilities detailed and consolidated in one place. The next step was to collate and validate over 900 key business processes information and translate this into corresponding process maps, providing Currys with a single view of the current aftersales business, detailing how different areas of the business collaborate.

To enable Currys to embed the business architecture model into its business transformation project management, BearingPoint again focused on transferring knowledge that would remain with the client after it withdrew. To do this, the firm created a playbook, which detailed best practice continual improvement models, including how to utilise and maintain the business architecture model to assess impacts of transformation initiatives across business capabilities. According to the client, this extensive testing and training has made the project an early success.

Stroud notes, “The great thing about working with BearingPoint is that I’ve worked with them before, so I knew what I was getting effectively. We’ve trialled the new architecture in earnest, and it’s working really well.”

Indeed, both transformations are providing benefits to Currys already. In terms of the business architecture model, the corresponding playbook has “delivered a best-practice process and capability reference point to form the basis for all future transformation initiatives as the business evolves”. According to a release from BearingPoint, this has positioned Currys to make considered strategic transformation decisions and an accelerated approach to deliver and embed future change within the business.

At the same time, the aftersales changes have identified clear opportunities for Currys to reduce their aftersales operating costs. At the same time, the firm has identified ways to enhance services it delivers to customers, including a programme of work to optimise its delivery partner network and increase the utilisation of their in-house delivery and installation crews. This is what Higgins refers to as “the sweet spot”, delivering “a really fantastic result that has both driven customer service improvement and finding savings” – something which he hopes will see Currys want to work with BearingPoint again in the future.

According to Stroud, there is little doubt that will be the case. Explaining why his firm can trust BearingPoint with its most important matters, he asserts “they always bring the A team” unlike other firms where “the A team sells the concept, then you get the B team to deliver it.”

“With BearingPoint, it’s very much the A team you get the whole way,” he concludes. “And they understand the business better than us sometimes! So, it’s been a delight to work with them, and we as a business will definitely do so again.”