JKR

Anne Murphy

For the love of Fish Fingers

Platform met again on Tuesday evening. It’s the monthly event where a group of us get together to hear first-hand from some of the business world’s leading innovators. This week we heard from the truly inspirational Anne Murphy, Managing Director of Birds Eye.

Anne’s CV is about as impressive as any in the FMCG world, featuring PepsiCo, Gillette, Procter & Gamble, Birds Eye and of course, Tesco, where it all began. She is a self-confessed retailer at heart and if she were to carry a factory mark, it would say: “built by Tesco”. Anne shared with us her enduring affection for fish fingers, as well as some lessons from her extensive experience. So here are the 3 principles of Murphy’s Law:

1. Get the right people and create a winning culture

Anne fully agrees with the old adage of ‘getting the right people on the bus’ but believes that creating a winning culture is equally as important. When faced with the challenge of turning around Birds Eye, she did a lot of listening both inside and outside the business, and then laid down a clear ambition. People were invited to line up behind it or not. Many stepped up and where people chose not to, new talent was brought in.

Motivation was the key to affecting cultural change and unifying divergent groups. Language, ways of working and remuneration were all changed to signify a new chapter. The “Birds Eye way of doing things” was clearly defined as PACE:

Performance

Ambition

Collaboration

Energy

All of which ensured that people valued the how, as well as the what.

2. Be obsessive about the competition

A clear tenet from the retailer that shaped her. Anne recalled the time that Tesco became the number one UK retailer. Amid the champagne corks and party poppers, Sir Terry Leahy (deputy MD at the time) stood up with the press cuttings that read ‘Tesco takes No 1 spot’. He quickly pointed out that the press cuttings were from the last time they’d assumed that position and that it only lasted for 12 weeks. Nothing could have focused the mind more sharply.

Anne believes that it’s not good enough to win at your own game but that you need to beat the competition at their game too. Her appetite for taking on the competition was perfectly articulated by the comment that “when you’re in a street fight, it doesn’t always pay to be elegant”.

3. Be bold – back yourself!

Perhaps a response to the criticism that “she’s not data driven enough”, Anne feels that in an increasingly complex world, it would be easy to allow data to govern all that we do. Whilst she recognises the importance of fact-based decisions, she also believes in bolder decision making and backing your intuition. Sometimes the data will tell you one thing and you need to dig deep and be true to your instincts.

Tesco again, was the coaching ground for Anne’s intuition. Retail provides the most “real” environment, providing constant insight into real people leading real lives in real time. The significant investment that senior retailers make in spending time with customers, in and out of the store, is what helps build the confidence to be bold and back yourself.

The next Platform is on 19th April when our speaker is Alex Cheatle, the Founder of Ten Group. Places are in high demand but if you’d like to come along e-mail Amy at amymaw@jkr.co.uk and she’ll do her damndest to get you onto the list.