The Old Diocesan Issue 10 - Magazine - Page 34
Anglican school, he was always
a bit of an outsider. Infamously,
Raymond was selected to go on
a rugby tour to Rhodesia in his
final year, but was then told he
would be excluded because he
was Jewish.
“I think he was always an
outlier, and I think that’s partly
where his success came from,”
says Gareth. By the time his
father had emerged from school
and university, he knew what it
took to overcome adversity and
rise to a challenge, and he had
learnt to think laterally. It just
so happened that, at the time
– the early 1950s – change was
afoot within the retail industry
around the world. “Following
World War II, people had returned
to society and were earning a bit
of money. The democratisation
of society, particularly in the US,
was going strong,” says Gareth.
The influential figure of
the day was Bernardo Trujillo,
a Colombian-born American
marketing executive who
offered training programmes
for other executives, pioneering
a new understanding of shopping.
His “MMM seminars”, exploring
modern merchandising methods,
were part of the marketing strategy
of the NCR Corporation in Ohio,
a cash register company, and his
influence on the development
of modern supermarkets was
such that he became known
“What Bishops taught Raymond
was that it’s okay to be an outlier
and to find the upper hand.”
– Gareth Ackerman on his father’s ability
to turn challenges into opportunities
Gareth Ackerman with his father and founder of Pick n Pay, the late Raymond
Ackerman, and Nick Badminton (1978G), then-MD of the company, in 2009.
30 | THE OLD DIOCESAN
as the “Pope of Supermarketing”.
In his presentations, he defined
many key principles of the
industry, emphasising the need
to build supermarkets with large
parking lots, and to offer cheap
products. Raymond attended
Trujillo’s seminars along with
his wife, Wendy, and he would
remain in touch with Trujillo
for years to come. “Most of
the major supermarket groups
around the world were spawned
from people who attended this
course,” explains Gareth.
As Bruce Whitfield said after
Raymond’s death in September last
year, “Ackerman carved a place in
South African history by reshaping
the retail sector in the image of the
customer… He waged a relentless
campaign against the monopolies
and price cartels that characterised
commercial practice in the early
Pick n Pay years, winning lower
prices for household staples
while changing the face of food
retail with constant innovation.”
Gareth believes his father saw
the gap and was brave enough
to take it. “I think the reason that
Pick n Pay was a big success is
that the industry just happened
to be at that critical juncture
when he first started Checkers,
and even more so when he
started Pick n Pay. It really
was at a tipping point.”
Gareth describes participating in
a recent Harvard Business School
seminar in which the discussion
turned to Amazon, one of the
clearest examples of a company
that has benefited from a change
in the way people shop. “Amazon
effectively found itself at that
tipping point as well – there are
a number of those that happen
over time,” he says. “I think that’s
the way [Raymond] saw it, and
he took advantage of it. And the
ability to do that came directly
out of his time at Bishops.