1. Client Overview

• Industry: Multi-brand Retail – Auto, Sports, Outdoor, Lifestyle
• Business Size: $3.8B+ revenue across Australia and New Zealand
• Brands: Supercheap Auto, Rebel, BCF, Macpac
• Client Context:
  Super Retail Group is one of Australasia’s leading retail groups, operating across a mix of discretionary and essential goods. Each brand had developed its own pricing processes, resulting in inconsistent execution, discounting culture, and weak coordination between strategy and operations. Margin pressure was increasing in categories affected by price-matching, promotional fatigue, and poor markdown ROI.

2. Challenge / Problem

• Symptoms Observed:
  
  • Decentralised pricing capability and tools across brands
  • Markdown processes lacked structured ROI review or automated decision rules
  • Discount culture embedded in store operations and customer service teams
  • Weak technical pricing knowledge, particularly in categories and marketing teams
  • Misalignment between category strategy, marketing calendar, and frontline execution
• Strategic Impact:
  
  • Missed EBIT due to reactive pricing, inefficient clearance events, and price compression from competitive pressures
  • Inconsistent price perception across online and in-store, weakening customer trust
  • High markdown dependency, especially in seasonal stock and promotional items
• Executive Commentary:

“We’re spending a lot on promotions, but it’s not clear what’s actually delivering profitable volume. Every brand is running their own race on price.”

3. Objectives of the Engagement

• Benchmark pricing strategy and execution capability across SRG brands
• Identify cross-brand margin opportunities from pricing structure and markdown governance
• Improve promotional ROI by building rigour into markdown decisioning
• Develop a pricing operations centre of excellence (PCOE) across brands
• Elevate technical pricing skills in category, marketing, and planning teams

4. Our Approach

• Phase 1: Capability & Technical Diagnostic
  
  • Assessed 4 major brands and support functions through structured pricing surveys and capability scoring
  • Evaluated team alignment, pricing process maturity, and technical pricing fluency
  • Delivered quiz on pricing maths; results revealed weak grasp of discount/margin impact (especially in category teams)
• Phase 2: Gap Analysis & Alignment
  
  • Mapped pricing capability across functions: Category, Marketing, Planning, Executive
  • Identified key risks: manual pricing overrides, lack of markdown guardrails, absence of deal performance tracking
  • Highlighted need for unified pricing playbook and executive sign-off framework
• Phase 3: Quick Wins and PCOE Roadmap
  
  • Developed pricing knowledge curriculum targeting markdown, pricing maths, and elasticity modelling
  • Proposed a markdown governance model including guardrails, triggers, approval limits, and ROI tracking
  • Outlined future-state operating model for pricing operations capability across all brands

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7. Client Feedback

“We finally have a consistent view of what good pricing looks like. The training gave our team confidence, the playbook gave us discipline, and the margin impact is already visible.”
— Group Executive – Merchandise and Planning, SRG

8. What This Means for Similar Companies

Retailers with multiple brands often struggle to balance local execution with group-level pricing governance. SRG’s case highlights how margin erosion can be reversed by building capability in markdown science, discount control, and pricing discipline — without undermining brand autonomy or trading agility.

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