Fashioning a sustainable future for an online clothing retailer

“We could see that the opportunity for the organization was massive,” says Beighton, recalling his brief to the EY team. “What we were less clear about was how we extract the right fuel to fund our growth aspirations.”

Mona Bitar, UK&I Consumer Leader, Ernst & Young LLP says that the approach of EY teams was to help the ASOS leadership team look at their business as an external investor would: “We took an “outward-in” approach and challenged the team to think about their business in a different way.” She adds that it was important to bring the executive team on a journey, ensuring they were engaged so they felt comfortable and accountable for owning targets and plans.

The EY teams focused on a rapid diagnostic that covered extensive areas – including looking at the product range, customer segmentation, supplier performance, logistics, inventory and support functions – and was able to identify significant opportunities to help super-charge ASOS’s ambitions. This was achieved by bringing together people from a number of service offerings, including Strategy; Restructuring and Turnaround Strategy; Valuation, Modeling & Economics; and Consulting, as well as retail professionals – all working as one team.

The COVID-19 pandemic posed an additional challenge and meant that the EY team had to present their findings to ASOS on a video call. Beighton praises the way EY adapted to the unexpected new working conditions: “I was impressed with their ability to pivot with the new circumstances and still bring us solutions, in a moment when I’m sure EY staff’s lives were turned upside down in the same ways our lives were turned upside down,” he says. Indeed, many of the key team members on both sides have still never met face to face.

ASOS incorporated the EY team’s findings into its three-year strategic plan, enabling it to set clear targets to achieve its ambitions. To do so, the company has established an enterprise-wide value transformation program, which EY is now helping it to shape.

Beighton believes one of the reasons the relationship between ASOS and EY teams have worked so well is that both are purpose-led organizations. “That helped build and maintain trust,” he says. “At the core of what we’re doing, we’re both aligned on achieving outcomes in a way that suits both of us. Also, when you have bumps in the road during the process, it allows you to recommit to trust. You can say, I disagree with this, you disagree with that, but actually, we both want something that’s better. So it brings you back together.”

The work of the EY teams has already started to bear fruit, with strong savings in cash and costs made in the first year.

As Beighton explains, it also helped enable the company to achieve a long-held ambition. “During January, the comfort we’d built in the business and the cushions we’d built in terms of greater earnings and cash flow – programs EY was working with us on – enabled us to buy Topshop [and other Arcadia brands],” he says. “Had we not reshaped ourselves, we would not have had the ability to buy that brand that we so dearly wanted.”

As ASOS prepares for business in a post-pandemic world, it has identified clear efficiencies and now has a smart strategic plan, making it more resilient, better prepared for the future and, ultimately, able to continue inspiring and delighting its fashion-loving 20-something customers in a way that is difficult for others to copy.