Two Storms, Back to Back

Every business leader expects to face a crisis eventually. Few expect to face two generational shocks in immediate succession. Yet that is precisely what British retail endured: the prolonged uncertainty and structural upheaval of Brexit, followed almost immediately by a global pandemic that rewrote the rules of commerce overnight. Steering Furniture in Fashion, the online furniture retailer I founded in 2007, through both storms was the most demanding leadership test of my career, and the most instructive.

What follows is not a victory lap. It is an honest account of what those years demanded, offered in the hope that the lessons prove useful to others who will inevitably face their own storms.

Brexit: Managing Uncertainty Before Managing Change

The hardest phase of Brexit for retailers was not the change itself but the years of not knowing what the change would be. Supply chains built over decades, particularly for a furniture business importing from European manufacturers, suddenly rested on unknowable future arrangements. Planning horizons collapsed from years to months.

Our response was to prioritise flexibility over optimisation. We diversified suppliers across multiple regions rather than concentrating for maximum margin. We built inventory buffers ahead of key deadlines. We invested time in understanding customs processes before they were required, so that when new paperwork arrived, we were fluent while some competitors were still learning the vocabulary. The lesson: in prolonged uncertainty, the resilient position beats the optimal position. Efficiency is a fair-weather virtue; adaptability is an all-weather one, and businesses must know which season they are in.

Covid: The Week Everything Changed

The pandemic presented the opposite challenge: not slow uncertainty but instant transformation. Within days, showrooms across the country closed, supply chains froze, and, unexpectedly, demand for home furniture surged as the nation converted bedrooms into offices and rediscovered the importance of comfortable living space.

As an established online retailer, we were more fortunate than many; the channel shift accelerated towards us. But fortune still had to be managed. Container costs multiplied. Delivery networks buckled. Lead times stretched, testing customer patience daily. Our answer was radical communication: telling customers the truth about delays before they asked, updating them proactively, and absorbing costs where fairness demanded it. Trust, we learned, is the only inventory that never runs out, provided you keep restocking it with honesty. Customers will forgive a delayed sofa far more readily than a broken promise about one, and the reviews we received during those months proved it.

People First, Always

Both crises taught the same human lesson. A business survives on the commitment of its people, and commitment is built long before the crisis arrives. Through the most difficult months, our team in Farnworth, Bolton showed extraordinary dedication, adapting to new safety protocols, new systems, and relentless pressure without losing the standard of service our customers expected.

Leadership in those months meant visibility and candour: being present, sharing what we knew and admitting what we did not, and making clear that the company's first duty was to its people's safety and livelihoods. I remain convinced that the loyalty shown to a team in hard times is repaid many times over. It is a principle I carry into every organisation I now advise, as described on the services page.

What the Storms Left Behind

Crises are brutal teachers, but their lessons endure. Brexit taught us that supply chains must be designed for resilience, not just efficiency. Covid taught us that customer trust, honestly maintained, will carry a business through almost any operational failure. Together they taught me that the companies which survive shocks are those that made unglamorous preparations in calm weather: cash discipline, supplier diversity, and cultures of adaptability.

These lessons now inform my work far beyond retail. When I advise on investment and cross-border partnerships in my international roles, resilience is the first quality I look for in any venture, because the next storm is never a question of if.

A Message to Fellow Retailers

To those still rebuilding from these years, or bracing for whatever comes next, I offer this: the fact that British retail absorbed two generational shocks and continued serving its customers is a testament to the sector's underlying strength. Adversity did not diminish our industry; it revealed it.

My own journey from founding a business in 2007 to advising internationally today is chronicled on the about page, and ongoing developments appear in the news section. If your business is navigating its own storm and a conversation would help, you know where to find me.