To be successful, offer value for money

A friend of mine recently returned from China where he worked as back-up to the successful British Olympic swimming team.

When I spoke to him he was very proud of the team's achievement, which had taken many by surprise, but not the swimmers themselves.

I asked him what he attributed this to. "Quite simple," he said.

"Some time ago we realised that the difference between first and fourth place in most races is a fraction of a second, as a percentage of the total race time, 0.0001%.

"We then identified all of the things that could affect our performance by that percentage. The list was endless, but someone spotted that unlike most major swimming finals, the Beijing finals were scheduled for a morning local time in order to hit peak western TV audiences.

"This is totally alien to the swimming 'norm' but we took the decision to change our schedules round to peak in the morning — and Britain was the only nation in the world that held its Olympic qualifiers in the morning! When we got to Beijing every other team moaned about morning finals. We were geared up specifically for it."

While not attributing all of the team's success to something so simple, it may well have made the 0.0001% difference.

So what point am I making, and how does it relate to MA readers?

"Control the controllables" is something of a sporting cliché but one writ large with the swimmers.

In speaking to people in and around the licensed trade, its current trading difficulties are blamed on many things: supermarkets, Her Majesty's Treasury and Home Office, Sky TV, Setanta, the written press, GMTV or indeed a combination of the above.

While all these things may be relevant, there is little we as an industry can do about them. They are beyond our direct control. A lot is written and said about the state of the pub market, the truth is, in every town I visit on my travels there remain pubs that trade well and are successful.

What is their secret?

Simply, pubs that understand their customers and give them what they want, while offering value for money. To stress, not necessarily cheap — people expect to pay more in a pub — but value for money.

To this end, can I take this opportunity to thank Coke customers who supported our quality initiative earlier this year to reduce shelf life on bag-in-box products.

Draught soft drinks are among the most profitable lines in a pub. As a result of this initiative and your support, draught soft drinks stand more chance of being seen as value for money in every UK licensed premises.

Andy Slee is licensed trading director at Coca-Cola Enterprises