Harvey Norman CEO Insists Company Is ‘Comfortable and Confident’
Harvey Norman’s profits and sales may have plummeted during lockdowns, but CEO and wife of Gerry Harvey, Katie Page, told The Australian the company is well poised to take advantage of the upcoming sales rush – and not just in Australia.
“We are in eight countries, people forget we are not just in Australia,” she told the paper.
“We are really comfortable and confident with the inventory levels that the franchisees and the company owned stores are holding going into that peak period.
“Everyone is talking about supply chain, not just in retail but every industry, and we have managed this, we were talking about supply chain challenges at the end of January 2020 when in Wuhan the Chinese new year was effectively cancelled because the outbreak happened.
“So we have had and the world has had these issues for 20 or 22 months, and businesses have had to be really savvy and smart on how they have managed this and we are really comfortable with our eight countries, where they are sitting, company owned and franchisees, with inventory.
“I think it will be interesting in December and January, if you are seeing now that you have got retailers that are going out and saying they have supply chain issues then it is going to be very difficult for them in December and January.”