Retailers are still struggling to win on the internet because some main board directors 'haven't a clue' about online, according to the internet boss of Marks & Spencer.
Laura Wade-Gery, Marks & Spencer's multichannel director, said her equivalents in other businesses are struggling to get their voices heard with the executive board.
Other directors need to be 'sufficiently digitally literate' for multichannel directors to have a chance at winning them over, she said.
'I talk to some of the heads of online in other retailers and they’re struggling. They turn up in the boardroom and nobody really has any clue about what they’re talking about, and that matters,' she told Retail Week in an interview.
'It’s easier to get them to spend the money if you’re talking to a group of people who know what you’re taking about,' said Wade-Gery.
She said she has a main board position which makes her 'relatively rare and at one stage unique' among bricks and mortar retailers.
Marks & Spencer and other department stores such as John Lewis, Debenhams and House of Fraser have tackled the online threat over the past three years, seizing it as an opportunity.
However, even some supermarkets have a relatively under-developed online strategy other than in grocery delivery which they have established as their main battleground. Despite having long-established non-food strategies most of the big four - Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's and Morrisons - have lagged their big high street rivals.
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