THE bosses of Beales have said the business is in “turnaround” as they aim to turn department store shopping into “sensory theatre”.

Chief executive Michael Hitchcock says he has introduced a change in the culture at the Bournemouth-based store chain.

Along with trading director Tony Richards, he says he has encouraged the chain’s 33 stores to put themselves at the “heart of the community”.

He said: “The business is in turnaround. It’s been in turnaround for a number of years and the board asked me and Tony to take that process forward once the previous CEO had resigned.

“We are still very much in turnaround in an economy that’s coming out of the severest financial crisis that you and I and anyone else alive at the moment will probably ever live through.

“That makes life incredibly difficult as a retailer, particularly when you’ve got studies showing that people are feeling less well off than they have in a long time.”

But he said he had already presided over a major change in the culture of the organisation.

“We’ve turned the culture of this business around 180 degrees in nine months.

“Don’t let anyone say you can’t turn the culture of a business around in under a year,” he said.

The company’s in-house magazine was called Difference, “because we have to be different”.

“When I first took on the role of CEO, I said to everyone you’ve got to think different, look different, smell different, you’ve got to be different,” he said.

The aim was to make the store the “local independent store of choice”, he said.

He said staff had been allowed to contribute their own ideas, citing the example of a branch in Spalding where staff in the lingerie department took products to a care home and sold £3,000 worth.

“I just wanted people to be far more empowered to do things locally. That comes with responsibility and accountability,” he said. I firmly believe everyone in our stores has a creative talent that can create a point of difference.”

He said the process had involved “casualties”.

“We have changed 50 per cent of our store directors,” he said. He said the company was reducing the losses it reported earlier in the year, despite hard economic times and the collapse of several companies who ran concessions in the stores or supplied fashion lines.

The company has focused on making shopping an experience – with both a restaurant and cafe in its flagship Bournemouth store, demonstrations and tasting sessions and events for loyalty card holders.

Breakfast with Santa in the Sundays running up to Christmas was sold out.

Mr Richards said the business was returning to its heritage at the same time as attracting new people into the store. “The shopping experience needs to be a fulfilling shopping experience,” he said.

Mr Hitchcock said: “It’s all about sensory theatre. It’s got to appeal to the senses “At Christmas if you can’t put theatre into a department store, with all the stage sets you’ve got, you might as well turn the lights off and go home.”

Mr Richards said he hoped people who had not been to the stores for some time would try them again.

“If you think you know Beales, think again. Go in there and feel the experience,” he said.