Organisation: WH Smith

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Analysis and commentary by Echo Research.

WH Smith CEO Kate Swann successfully combined two tactics when she announced the company's worst results in 200 years. At the helm of the ailing High Street business for under a year, she used the twin-track strategy of holding her predecessor responsible and 'kitchen-sinking' - getting the bad news over in one go - to full effect. "Kate Swann has prepared the way for a profits recovery of Lazarus proportions by loading as much junk as she can find into today's accounts,"commented The Times (14/10), while The Guardian observed Swann's "thorough hand-bagging"(15/10) of Richard Handover, as she emphasised that the business she inherited was "a mess … I had expected it to be better run".

Yet the grim reality of the former High Street stalwart escaped no-one. Squeezed by supermarkets and the internet, many retailers are struggling to justify their identity and raison d'etre: "(WH Smith's) format has outlived its purpose … only shock treatment and a radical makeover can save it from a slide into retail oblivion"noted thisislondon (14/10), a view echoed widely elsewhere. The CEO has three years to pull WH Smith out of the doldrums and create a niche on the High Street. Fail, and the media and shareholders will be penning her swansong.