CASE STUDY – Asprey & Garrard

OVERVIEW

Asprey & Garrard, a $75M luxury goods retailer and the Crown’s dedicated jeweller, carried $225M in stock across its flagship store and London concession network. Despite its elite status, stock control had collapsed into chaos — invisible movement, audit paralysis, and no accountability.

Trigger for Intervention: Recurring $15M+ stock losses and six-month reconciliation lags had destroyed faith in controls — and invited regulatory risk.

THE CHALLENGE

Inventory chaos, audit paralysis, and no accountability had eroded trust and control across the business.

• Stock loss blindness — Inventory counts took six months to reconcile, with $15M+ stock variances regularly written off.
• No live view — Five locations, one inventory file, no locational control — movement was tracked by memory.
• Process vacuum — No perpetual inventory routines, no audit capability, and no formal and timely variance diagnostics.
• Organisational drift — Leadership churn delayed reform; finance teams bore the entire burden.
• Zero accountability — Goods left the business undocumented — very few knew how, why, or where.

THE APPROACH

Gary Newbury, an expert Supply Chain Consultant, was brought in by the CFO to expose the truth, restore control, and embed long-term accountability.

• Redefined the stock-take — Reset goals and methodology, rebuilt the organisation and reframed reconciliation as an operational priority.
• Embedded ownership — Built cross-functional teams in retail operations, stockroom, and buying to own the preparation work and the inventory count accuracy.
• “Branching” protocols — Mapped showroom/store flows to track goods in motion across multiple physical locations.
• Early warning system — Introduced variance classifications to flag vulnerabilities and identify root causes fast.
• End-to-end review — On early success, commissioned to redesign merchandising, procurement, and retail operations processes.

THE SOLUTION

Practical reforms and cultural shifts established visibility, safeguards, and lasting business discipline.

• Collaborative investigations — Teams tackled category-specific variances (e.g., jewellery, watches, books etc.) using focused internal investigations.
• Audit function installed — A small dedicated audit team was created to maintain inventory accounting integrity between formal counts.
• Exit tracing — Gaps causing 60%+ of losses were identified, documented, and eliminated.
• Ledger scrub — $69M in “On Appro” stock was clarified and accountability for cleansing assigned — these undocumented items were exposed and recovery plans individually assigned to retail staff.
• Commercial clarity reset — Recommended separating creative design from inventory and merchandising decisions to safeguard margin and purchasing discipline.