Business overview
The Next Brand
The Next retail chain was launched in February 1982 and the first store opened with an exclusive coordinated collection of stylish clothes, shoes and accessories for women. Collections for men, children and the home quickly followed. Next clothes are styled by its in-house design team to offer great style, quality and value for money with a contemporary fashion edge.
Today Next trades from more than 500 stores in the UK and Eire and over 180 stores in more than 30 countries overseas. Over the last few years several larger format stores have opened across the UK and, in October 2005, Next opened a store at the Manchester Arndale Centre in excess of 80,000 square feet.
The groundbreaking mail order operation Next Directory launched in 1988 with a hardback book containing 350 pages, creating the blueprint for catalogue retailing. There are more than 1,300 pages in the Autumn Winter 2010 book offering extensive collections for men, women, children and everything for the well dressed home.
Online shopping was introduced in 1999 and the entire book is available to shop from on the internet, page by page – another first in home shopping in the UK. Next Directory now also serves customers in 35 countries outside the UK through its international website, NextDirect.com.
Next continues to improve customer service, introducing new initiatives such as next day delivery as standard for Next Directory orders placed before 6pm.
Customers may collect or return items at any of our stores nationwide should this be more convenient, and a new in-house delivery service has been set up to deliver large Home items with the ability to deliver at weekends. As well as placing orders, customers are able to check their accounts and make payments online.
Other group businesses
Next Sourcing has operations in mainland China, Hong Kong, Romania, Sri Lanka, India, Turkey and the UK engaged in the design, sourcing, buying, merchandising and quality control of Next products.
Lipsy designs and sells its own branded younger women's fashion products through wholesale, retail and website channels.
Ventura provides customer services management to clients (including Next Directory) wishing to outsource their customer contact administration and fulfilment activities. It operates six call centres in the UK and one in India, employing in total more than 7,000 people.
Business strategies and objectives
The primary financial objective of the Next group remains the delivery of sustainable long term growth in earnings per share. Next believes this objective is best achieved by continuation of the following strategies in its operating businesses:
- Improving and developing Next product ranges, success in which is reflected in total sales and like for like sales performance.
- Profitably increasing Next selling space. New store appraisals must meet demanding financial criteria before the investment is made and success is measured by monitoring achieved sales and profit contribution against appraised targets.
- Increasing the number of Next Directory customers and their average spend.
- Managing gross and net margins by better product sourcing, continuous cost control and efficient management of stock levels and working capital.
- Maintaining the Group's financial strength through a resilient balance sheet and financing structure.
- Purchasing and cancelling Next shares when it is earnings enhancing and in the interests of shareholders generally.
Corporate responsibility
For Next, corporate responsibility means addressing key business-related social, ethical and environmental impacts and ensuring we run our business in a responsible way. We see corporate responsibility as a key element of how we conduct our business as we believe it makes good business sense. Further information can be found on the corporate responsibility pages of our website.
Key statistics
| Year ended January | 2010 | 2009 | |
| Group revenue | £3.4 billion | £3.3 billion | |
| Group profit before tax | £505 million | £429 million | |
| Total employees | 55,122 | 59,088 | |
| Total full time equivalents | 35,619 | 36,973 | |
| UK & Eire stores | 517 | 510 | |
| Square footage | 5.76 million | 5.50 million | |
| Average active Directory customers | 2.28 million | 2.20 million | |
| Annual total of Directory pages | 3,968 | 3,960 | |
| Number of shares purchased | 5.9 million | 3.9 million | |
| Total cost | £120 million | £54 million |
All figures from January 2010 Annual Report & Accounts.