Director of Coles Liquor, Greg Davis, revealed March 25 at the drinks association’s March Network Breakfast, a number of strategic plans pivotal to the transformation of its under performing business.

Coles Liquor is currently facing a number of similar issues to those faced by its fresh food business in 2009, which Davis was responsible for the turn around of then. Davis is now heading a similar transformation of the under-performing liquor business

Davis’ key priorities over the coming months will be to close down under performing stores and focus on performance in remaining outlets, while Davis aims to drive growth by consolidating the chains’ range of brands and focus closer on its existing. To do this, Davis says Coles Liquor will also be consolidating its supplier relationships, as well as expanding its private label offering.

“In any turn around, and in my experience in the fresh food business in the Coles turn around, the suppliers are really what makes it tick; understanding how we make a stronger relationship with our suppliers and finding the suppliers that connect with us so that we can grow, and that’s the secret. And we won’t grow significantly with everyone, but the partners that we work with we will find a way to grow with them.

“We’re a large business and I think our plans have been scattergun approached in the past and so now we’re going to be a lot more clearer with the partners we’re going to deal with, the expectations we have of them and then how we can grow together. But it starts with making good customer centric decisions, sometimes they’re tough decisions, but we need to have a plan of selling, rather than a plan of buying.”

“We will share our plans, but you will find that we will share them with fewer suppliers”, Davis added. “We have to, we can’t work with every supplier in the industry, we’re just not capable of doing it.”

“From a private label perspective, I think we haven’t even touched the surface. And we can do a lot more there and that will be a fundamental opportunity for us to actually grow our exclusive brands and private label business.”

Davis has already recruited further into and restructured Coles’ Liquor Land, First Choice and Vintage Cellars retail banners, strengthening their focus on convenience and value for the customer, as well as improving the in-store customer experience with better customer service, product range and the promotion and education of brands.

“We’re going back to basics, we’re reconstructing our business, we’re going to have a real customer focus, we have three brands we’re going to protect and make sure we treat them like our children, and we’re going to focus on how we can trade better with our suppliers. It’s a simple as that.”