Interim Chief Operating Officer for Retail Availability

Establish where availability is lost

Analyse representative products and stores to distinguish forecasting errors, supplier shortfalls, distribution constraints, inaccurate stock records and shelf-replenishment problems. Examine the effect of promotions and range changes on ordinary operations. Validate system information against physical conditions so that reported availability does not substitute for the customer experience.

Execute the operating changes

Lead an agreed cross-functional programme with accountable owners for the main failure points. Improve exception handling and the quality of decisions made when supply is constrained. Clarify the responsibilities of commercial, logistics and store leaders, including how competing priorities are resolved during peaks.

The executive will manage approved operating resources and implement changes within delegated authority. Major capital commitments, supplier contract amendments and changes to reserved policies require the relevant approval. Technology changes should support a clearly understood process and include reliable fallback arrangements.

Work with store teams to make replenishment routines practical. Assess whether labour schedules, delivery timing and backroom conditions support the intended service. Where inventory accuracy is weak, address its causes rather than simply scheduling repeated corrective counts.

Selecting the operating executive

Candidates should have senior retail operations or supply-chain leadership experience with direct delivery accountability. They must demonstrate improvements in availability alongside disciplined stock and cost management. Applications should explain a case where a local performance measure encouraged behaviour that weakened the wider system and how it was corrected.

Shelf availability as the final test

Success will be measured through customer-facing availability, stock accuracy, waste, inventory productivity and the reliability of promotional execution. The permanent team should inherit clear ownership, useful exception information and routines that work during ordinary trading pressure. Handover is complete when the business can detect and resolve recurring availability problems without a temporary command structure intervening across every function.