Kingfisher plc

📣 Screwfix announces the opening of its newest format - Screwfix City.    This ultra-compact format offers even greater convenience to London's busy tradespeople. Located in high footfall areas, the stores provide customers with all the essentials they need to get their jobs done quickly and conveniently. 🛠️   Screwfix City will have up to 20 stores open by the end of 2024, including the first stores in cities outside of London!    👏 Well done to all the colleagues involved! 👏

Our Group AI Director Mohsen Ghasempour, Ph.D. recently spoke with ComputerWeekly.com about our approach to AI at Kingfisher, our growing in-house capability and the tangible benefits our AI projects are already bringing our customers and business. Check out the full article to find out more 👇

Castorama Polska Sp. z o.o. is celebrating the opening of its 107th store in Ostróda in northern Poland. ✨🎉 The store not only offers customers a wide choice of home improvement products, but also a range of convenient services including: 🏠 CastoRent, offering customers the opportunity to rent tools and gardening equipment, 🔒 Castomat lockers allowing for quick and convenient collection of online orders, 🚗 CastoDrive, giving customers designated parking to pick up their online orders with the convenience of store staff delivering to customers’ cars.  Congratulations to all our Castorama colleagues and especially to the 80 colleagues working in the store! 

The Voice of The Trade report published by Screwfix today, based on a survey of more than 1,000 UK tradespeople, highlights the pressing need for more Government action to address trade skills shortages and support more young people into trade careers. 🛠️ 🧱 With the UK on course to face a shortfall of 250,000 tradespeople by 2030, 92% of tradespeople surveyed believe more needs to be done within schools to promote trade career opportunities and how rewarding they can be.    Visit the link in the comments to read the full report 👇

Congratulations to Laurent Vittoz, who has been appointed to the Kingfisher Group Executive as CEO of BRICO DÉPÔT France from 1 September. Laurent has led Brico Dépôt France since March 2022, overseeing a range of significant developments including the launch of the banner’s innovative 1000m² store format and the rollout of ‘pro zones’ to enhance its trade customer proposition. With his extensive experience in commercial and global sourcing leadership roles, he is very well placed to build on Brico Dépôt France’s exciting potential - through driving like-for-like sales, capturing the trade opportunity, developing new formats and improving productivity.

Today B&Q is celebrating the opening of a brand new B&Q Local store in Brighton! 🎉   The Brighton store is the first B&Q Local store to open outside of London. B&Q Local is a compact and convenient high-street format, offering customers B&Q’s wide range of home improvement products and services closer to home. The store will also offer rapid on-demand delivery to local customers through B&Q's new partnership with Deliveroo when the service launches in store later in the month.   The opening was attended by Brighton Gay Men’s Choir, Brighton & Hove City Council ward councillor Andrei Czolak and local artist Dave Pop Art, who created an eye-catching window mural display for the new store 👏🏻

🎥  The next episode in our Sustainability Series features Gin Tidridge, Sustainability Manager, who takes us through how we are working to address the impacts our products make on the environment through our Sustainable Home Product programme.   Our Sustainability Series is a selection of bite-sized interviews hosted by our Investor Relations manager and ESG investor engagement lead Nathan Cao, CFA as he meets with sustainability experts from around the business, to provide viewers with greater insight into our Responsible Business agenda and key focus areas. To watch the full interview, click the link in the comments 👇

🛠️ New research published by B&Q and TradePoint UK today shines a light on a concerning gender divide among school leavers looking to enter the trade industry. Over half of 16–18-year-old girls surveyed believed boys receive more opportunities to enter the sector than they do. To create a more equitable future and support more young women to pursue fantastic trade careers, B&Q has pledged £1 million to fund trade apprenticeships and is working with Transfer to Transform – their apprenticeship and skills partners – to encourage and promote these among girls and women. Find out more about the research through the link in the comments below 👇

🎥 Continuing our 'Powered by our People' colleague interview series, we'd like to introduce Eloise Hopes, Sustainability Manager in our Responsible Business team.   Eloise helped to set up our Net Zero Logistics Forum, which brings together logistics colleagues across our banners to support their decarbonisation journey.    Watch below to find out more 👇

Our Group AI Director Mohsen Ghasempour, Ph.D. spoke to Retail Gazette magazine recently about our use of AI to improve both the customer and colleague experience. Mohsen has built an industry-leading team of 30 experts, who are already delivering strong results in areas such as product personalisation and recommendation, supply chain transparency and demand forecasting, and generative AI through the recent launch of our ‘Hello Casto’ digital virtual assistant. 🛒 Click the link in the comments to read the article 👇