What's In The Box
The brand new podcast from BOXTEC. Join us as we invite guests from retail and hospitality to discuss the issues of the day, with one unique twist: uncut, unedited and each episode just fifteen minutes long - because we're busy and we know you are too.
What's In The Box
Technology with Purpose: How EE is Transforming the Telco Experience
What happens when you take a pharmacy leader with an OBE and put him in charge of reimagining retail in the telco industry? Pure innovation.
Asif Aziz, Retail Director at EE, brings a refreshingly human-centered approach to retail. Drawing from his early days as a market trader and his 27-year career at Boots, Aziz shares his philosophy that "care and commerciality are two sides of the same coin" – deliver exceptional customer experiences and business success naturally follows.
The conversation takes us inside EE's groundbreaking Studio store at Westfield White City – a 4,000 square foot space that's anything but a traditional phone shop. This award-winning retail concept features room sets and experience zones that have been carefully curated to demonstrate how cutting-edge technology and connectivity are enhancing everyday life – allowing customers to get a taste of future living.
Beyond building first-in-class retail experiences, EE is also tackling meaningful societal challenges through initiatives like its "Safer SIMs" programme, which helps parents navigate children's technology use with age-appropriate plans and expert guidance. This reflects Aziz's belief that technology companies have a responsibility to help customers through increasingly complex digital landscapes – a perspective gained during his experience leading Boots' COVID testing response when he witnessed firsthand how tech barriers prevented people from accessing essential services.
The results speak volumes: 47 EE Experience Stores nationwide with double-digit increases in footfall wherever these new stores open. In an era when many question the relevance of physical retail, Aziz demonstrates that stores thrive when reimagined as destinations for education, exploration, and genuine human connection.
Ready to experience the future of retail? Visit an EE Experience Store and discover how technology stores can be enjoyable, meaningful, and surprisingly human.
Welcome to what's in the Box, the brand new podcast brought to you by Box Technologies. Powering retail with purpose, boxtech delivers innovative and market-leading customer engagement solutions that turn business ideas into a performing reality, from design and integration to ongoing support and maintenance. We're with you every step of the way. Now, this podcast is a little different to what you might be used to. I'm your host, andrew Busby, and it's audio only, you'll be delighted to know Totally unscripted. So I've no idea what's going to happen, what we're going to cover, and just 15, maybe 20 minutes on each episode, because we're busy, our guests certainly are, and we're sure you are too, so let's get right into it.
Speaker 1:My guest today has over a decade of experience in developing and implementing business and retail strategies. Since joining EE as Retail Director at the beginning of 2023, he has been a key figurehead in establishing the brand's new retail strategy, including the opening of the flagship EE studio in Westfield, london, white City, along with a rollout of regional EE experience stores across the UK. Previously, he spent 27 years at Boots, where he began his career as a pharmacy manager, later becoming director of stores, managing director of Boots Travel and director of healthcare. During his time at Boots, he played a key role in development of the company's omni-channel strategy to transform and grow the healthcare business. He also led in the rollout of the COVID-19 testing and vaccinations programs on behalf of the government and NHS during the pandemic. Receiving an OBE in the 2022 New Year's Honours, he's done a lot. Please welcome Asif Aziz.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much, Andrew. Good morning.
Speaker 1:Good morning to you, asif. Yeah, I said you probably need a rest after all that, but of course we know that there's no time for that, so we'll get straight into it. I said that we're all busy so we want to go right to it. Let's talk a little bit about your career in retail and perhaps just a little bit about that if you can condense that 27 years of boots into a few minutes and then we'll get into E, because I do want to talk about that in particular. I mentioned in the introduction the uh, the studio. It's a fantastic store, it's an award-winning store, so we'll come on to that. But yeah, tell us about your career in in retail and Boots days.
Speaker 2:No, thank you much and thanks very much for having me. That's a very kind introduction, andrew. So I've always liked to talk to people and I've always been a bit nosy and inquisitive about others and learning and understanding a little bit about them. And I tripped across retail quite early on in my life, as many people do's. It's a role which gives us so much variety of experience. But it allows you to talk, allows you to sell, and those two things are, you know, I thoroughly do enjoy. So I started off as a market trader when I was doing my e-levels and I did quite a bit of that uh, selling there the jackets, would you believe it, petticoat lane and I saw quite clearly was doing that, so that I had bit of the gift of the gab and also, at the same time, had the ability to really engage with customers and to be able to sell things, but sell it with a purpose and it's the feeling change that you create is what really mattered. I didn't know that then, but I certainly have learned that over a period of time working in many different environments and industries, as I look at. But what's the most common thing is having the art of talking, understanding, listening, then responding to customers and actually giving them the inspiration, excitement.
Speaker 2:I wanted to shop into something and that's something which stemmed very early on in my life. But I had to do something with myself. I couldn't just be a market trader all my life because, I'll be honest with you, my parents wouldn't let me at that time. So I went on to university, didn't know exactly know what to do. My friend excited me to go into pharmacy because he was going. I followed him and I ended up becoming a pharmacist, you know, would you believe. So I've got no amazing inspirational reasons as to how I, you know, ever became a pharmacist, but I thoroughly enjoyed it as a profession and I joined boots as you, you know, kindly highlighted earlier on and spent 27 years, you know, by being a pharmacist but also managing those stores, having many pharmacy roles, you know in, as well well as leadership roles in up and down the country, as well as looking after travel. But also, as part of that, I had the opportunity to not only look at healthcare, but how do I take healthcare and make that as part of our customers? You know daily lives in terms of helping them with their needs, and that's what pharmacy, as a profession, you know, brought. So it was practical, as with their needs, and that's what pharmacy has a profession, you know, abroad, so it was practical.
Speaker 2:As a pharmacist, what was the most fulfilling was understanding customers' needs, building relationships, you know, up with them, helping them, you know, with whatever conditions they may have, preventing them from happening again. But also when the customer patient comes back to you and tells you the difference that you've made is what gives you that real fulfillment that this is your purpose and that's what really, at the end of the day, I know, gets me out of bed. It's about having the purpose to make a difference, and I'm a big believer that care and commerciality are two sides of the same coin. If you deliver care brilliantly, you'll really excite customers. You'll, you know, build those relationships up with them and they'll come back to see you time and time again and and commercially you're successful. As a result, there's also going to tell 10 other customers, you know as well at the same time and you, you'll feel, you, you know, feel far better, you know, you know in what you do. So that's been an ethos in everything that I've done, whether I do it directly within a store environment or whether I've got the strategic role to be able to do that through through culture, through inclusivity and a greater purpose. You know, and that's such and that ethos that has stayed with me, whether it's at Boots or whether it's, you know, coming here to EE. You know as well, over the last three years and at Boots, like I said, I did, you know, store leadership roles, I did healthcare strategy and also I led the COVID response and that was a really interesting time, leading the COVID response, because we had no playbook.
Speaker 2:You know, at that particular moment in time it was a time of ambiguity. People were afraid to be asked by the government to help and support the COVID testing efforts when there were only 2000 tests happening in the UK at that particular moment in time, per day 25. The nhs workforce was self-isolating. They did not know whether they had covid or anything else. A number of cases were going through the roof.
Speaker 2:March 2020 and I'm sure it seems like a distant memory, but I'm sure we can all remember where we were too at that time thousands of the london ambulance drivers. Ambulance drivers were self-isolating. To be able to create a playbook and, to, you know, to increase the testing capabilities was one in a heck of a learning experience. But people run more towards you. You know you and sometimes we all believe in necessity is the mother of all inventions. You know, at that time that was a classic moment in my career and the rest is history. Because we did develop a COVID, tested, you know efforts up and down the country.
Speaker 2:You know developing those drive-thrus, and I started off a diagnostic business for boots as well at that time, particularly for people who wanted to travel. And and I'm always a bit of a hustler, you know I like to look for new income streams. I like to be a little bit, you know, entrepreneurial. Some things work, some things don't work. When I was a stores director for london, I remember for boots I opened up five non-pharmacy boot stores. Four of them didn't actually work because it was, you know, it was not the right timing. People wanted a pharmacy from boots. One of them still exists on great portland streets but the other four in the half closed. But you've got to try something. You've got to try something to. You know to. You know to to to uh, make sure that you are relevant not just for today but for also for the future, so that you know that's my. You know, you know history with boots for 27 years and I joined e in 2020.
Speaker 1:Well, december the 30th 2022, I remember is when I joined, I think not long after that, that I think we first met and since then we've talked on a number of occasions and what for me comes through and perhaps the studio store which, as I said earlier, we'll come on to in just a second is perhaps, I don't know it feels like it's the embodiment of a lot of your what you've just been talking about, your philosophy of retail, and that it's a very inclusive, it immerses people and so forth. But just before we get into that, going from your roles in Boots to then Retail Director, I think at EE that's on the face of it, doesn't sound like a logical kind of step. Tell us, tell us about that, and what um attracted you to joining uh the, uh the ee business?
Speaker 2:such an interesting question, andrew, and I've been asked that a few times and I don't have uh, you know the you know, the most exciting answer you know to this either. You know, other than to say that I didn't have to. I had a role at Boots and I was their healthcare director, looking after developing a healthcare business at the time and it had its own interests. But there came a time after 27 years where you want to continue to have three things, I believe, in life, and that is to keep learning, to feel challenged and have fun. And coming through COVID, my personal reflections were that I probably had done almost everything I could have done at Boots and I could have carried on doing some bits and made it that little bit better and advance it that bit further. But I was definitely thinking where's my next challenge coming from? And that didn't ever, ever, it never crossed my mind. It was going to be in telco, you know, to be honest, yeah, and it was one of those phone calls which came in a very narrow window window, you know, for me personally, which tapped me on the shoulder. So there's an opportunity here, would you know, and I should have did say why would I want to join a telco company. But so why don't you just have a conversation and see what it's about? And I met the team then here at ee and they inspired me with the vision that they had, you know, with the brand itself, you know, at that time and that was to change it from being a telco company to far, much more of a tech company.
Speaker 2:Now, when I was working with tech during covid times in healthcare, I saw firsthand how difficult it was for some of the patients, customers, to see even their GPs when they couldn't see them face to face because they did not know how to use technology. And technology continues to become part of people's everyday lives, whether we like it or we don't. You know, whether it's in healthcare, whether it's in education, whether it's in banking or entertainment. I'm sure we've all consumed technology, even to listen to this podcast. We're consuming technology, so it's in all of our lives. And it is complicated and it's going to get even more complicated. So I personally saw a purpose in that that. Can I make a change, can I do something different to the way conventionally telco operators have been operating, to make a difference and actually create a bit of belief and whilst at the same time create new income streams as well, you know, for us as a business.
Speaker 2:But I joined EE at a time when retail was going through a challenge. There was a question whether you know we should be having telco stores on the high street in the first place Because COVID changed people's shopping habits. Know we should be having telco stores on the high street in the first place because covid changed people's shopping habits. As we all know, more and more people reverted to shopping more digitally, you know, and online, and we had to repurpose ourselves, as you know, as a business and that is what we've set ourselves about doing. You know, here at te and um, transactions were, you know, were significantly down and we had lost a bit of identity as well.
Speaker 2:So I had this view that how do we move this business from being a transactional phone operator to an experiential technology business? And we do that in a sensible, pragmatic, customer-backed, insight-led kind of way. And for me, three things are always hugely important in a business is the people, is the products and the experience that you sell and is the environment in which you do it in. So they're the three fundamental areas that I focused myself on, but to moving it from a transactional business to far much more of an experiential one, focusing not on the product necessarily to begin with, but focusing on the relationship, exploring the customer's needs, then giving them what the customer's required from technology, then adding on anything which may be useful for them, inviting those customers back again by being the guides for life and capturing anything they may need in the future.
Speaker 2:Now you may go. That sounds quite similar to what a pharmacy you know does. It's about relationship versus exploring the symptoms. It's about giving the right medicines. It's about giving them something which prevents them from getting unwell again. It's about you being the pharmacist for life and capturing any other interest that they may have. It's not too dissimilar, you know. So the question you're going for the other there is absolutely, as long as you've got a purpose there yeah that's.
Speaker 1:That's been my transition, yeah yeah, so let's, let's talk just a little bit about, specifically about the e-studio store at westfield. As I said earlier, award winning. We've got actually in the, the next episode, this one of the people responsible for that, david dl from the, the agency dl and pow, and so I did talk to him about, uh, about that. But tell us a little bit about because it is very, very different to what people might imagine a I call it a phone shop, because I think that's kind of the language that people would probably be using. It's not that at all.
Speaker 2:Tell us a little bit about it so, yes, we opened up our first studio store in westfield in west london. It's 4 000 square foot store. It's an old in an x apple unit, would you believe? So just to put in the size of what a normal apple unit looks like from the size perspective. That's how big that particular store is and is in a prominent location and it is a store which we absolutely designed with the thought of a customer and the experience in their lives.
Speaker 2:You know that. You know that is, you know from the outset, and it is designed in a format of room sets and tech zones where you can experience technology, not just transact and buy it. You can experience technology. So before even you come in, you'll have digital information sites of what is actually going on in that store, from seminars, you know, to demos and things of that nature which is a theater which takes place, you know throughout. You know the openings, you know of that store. As soon as you then walk in, you've got a tech bar. You can come and sit down at the tech bar, charge your phone up, do your emails, do any work that you might want to do. You can have a cup of coffee, tea, you know, juices, you know with us or ask any basic tech needs, tech advice that you may want to have, no commitment to buy anything whatsoever. You can then walk into the room sets.
Speaker 2:The first one is the lounge area where you've got the TV connected to the right Wi-Fi. Now you've got a network of Wi-Fi which is invisible, but not every Wi-Fi is the same. It depends on the size of the home that you have, the locations of your home, the number of people using, the number of devices. I'm sure we've all come across. My family's have been using devices altogether and that's that lag. Or you couldn't get onto your meetings on Teams calls because there's so much going on in the home itself. Again, that requires real knowledge and understanding as to what's the right Wi-Fi, what's the right broadband package for my home, so we can actually demonstrate that we can look at your home by your postcode and really help you navigate customers through what's the right package for you. And then the products which sit on that. So, like TV, ee's got his own TV package now, which we never used to have. Like TV, he's got his own TV, you know package now, which we never used to have. And we work with partners like Netflix you know others to make sure we bring all you know, all the subscribe channels into play over here as well. But you do, but we do this in a lounge setting. You're sitting as if you're sitting in your own lounge and and experience that. Then you go into the home zones whereby how technology could be connected into your bedroom or in your work areas. You know, together with laptops and tablets.
Speaker 2:You know that we also sell but also the hidden areas of cybersecurity and scam guard and protection, making sure that you know you are working in a safe and secure environment. Part of that keeping kids safe online. Recently, we believe we've got a bigger role to play in this area as well, so you've got a zone there where it shows as to how you can keep your kids safe online. We've recently introduced the Safer Sims programme, together with the phone chat as well, and that is fundamentally a programme which helps EE to be the best for families where it keeps kids safe online. And the phone chat is quite an important phenomenon. You know whereby 77% from our research tells us parents were wanting to have a chat with their kids before the term started. Now to make sure that they're using it in a safe and the most effective kind of way. Now, percent of parents, also from a research, tells us they wanted they, they wish there was somebody else who could help them. You know, with this, which is the role you know that we are playing in in this area, and there are, you know, as part of that, like I said, there is a phone chat which is based, based on five principles on preparing, on highlighting, in owning the chat, negotiating in the right way, in establishing it. Whilst you're having this, you can have this chat in the most effective kind of way.
Speaker 2:And in stores we've got guides who are trained, expertly trained, to be able to support customers with this as well. And customers can book their appointments, know their appointments in stores, you know to do this. And they are nationally, they're not just in the studio, they're nationally available, you know, in all of our stores. And then we've got the Safer Sims program where you've got three different plans protected plan, a guided plan and a trusted plan. Protected plan is ideal for the first few years of your secondary school. The guided plan is ideal for the first few years of your secondary school. The guided plan then gives you a bit more independence, that they're the early teenagers. And then you've got the trusted plan where you've got a bit more freedom for the older kids, but again, you can get all the advice from us that you know for that. Now that again has got greater purpose in society because it's something which is, you know, a real topic in moment in society and as to how, as a responsible brand, that we can help. You know, parents.
Speaker 2:So, going back to studio once again, you then go into the gaming zones where you've got all the latest consoles and accessories by which you can actually demonstrate and play. You know, amongst your friends. There are six gaming zones together where you can, you know, game against each. You know six amongst your friends. There are six gaming zones together where you can game against each six of your friends all together at the same time, as well as VR zones where you can put the latest VR technology and see how this works in the gaming environment, as well as racing rigs and things of that nature. So we've got kids and adults coming in and experiencing the latest consoles before they purchase. But we also do free kids parties there as well. Now, if I didn't keep the local kids, you know you'd have to come.
Speaker 1:Well, I have to interrupt you there and say that there is one part of that store and you know what I'm going to say now that you took away, and I can never forgive you for this. Go on, tell us what was it. And actually there's a serious point to this. Tell us why you changed the layout there, because I think it's quite an interesting point and we've probably got about another minute or so.
Speaker 2:Go on, tell us what it was. So, look, we had what we call a digital spa. We had a digital spa in the store, which was forward-thinking, innovative immersive space to help relax customers. You use technology to help relax customers, but the reality was that the customers experienced it the lighter it was. They were there, but they could not connect with anything from an experience that they could take away then to the home and it didn't really work. So we changed it to far much more of an immersive experience using VRs and the latest connected technology of glasses like MetaWare and augmented reality that you see in using things like metaglasses and also it's the, it's like, it's like, yeah, you know the, the vr. I've just just totally slipped my mind well, I'll tell you.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you what was just about. I mean, I, when I went to him and I think that that the way you repurposed it, I think is fantastic, and I I think this is an aside the, the meta glasses or that's. I mean they're ray-ban, aren't they at the moment? It could be a brand in the future and whatever, I don't know, but I think that that is possibly, you know, the future, you know, in using voice, voice, using that whole. I'm just waiting for the time when I'm walking down the street wearing glasses and I've got a head-up display. I don't have to look down at a smartphone or anything like that. But maybe that's a little bit future stuff. We're pretty much out of time, but just tell us very quickly. We talked a lot there about the studio. It's not the only one of its type. There are experienced stores across the country. Just tell us very briefly what you can say about future plans, asif.
Speaker 2:Well, we've got 47 experienced stores up and down the country now, big ones in major city centres. We're going to continue opening them. You know we opened Sheffield just a few weeks ago in mary, in meadow hall, and mary hill opened up a couple of weeks ago as well, and we're going to have a new store in glasgow pretty soon, you know. You know two of this size and we're refreshing our smaller, experienced, local stores as well, which are all doing very, very well. In fact, the football's up double digits every so, you know, as soon as we open them and for falling, the E is actually up, you know, which is lovely to see, and because he's doing really well, we're going to have him, you know, progressing with these. You know, putting them in the country boundary.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's absolutely fantastic. We're definitely out of time, we're over time, but that's okay. So thank you so much, asif, as is. That was absolutely fascinating. Much Asif Aziz has absolutely fascinating, and I would recommend to people, if you haven't been along to any of the experience stores, or certainly the studio at Westfield White City, go along. It is an amazing store. So that's all we've got time for from what's in the box for now. New episodes will be dropping every two weeks, so please stay tuned and if you want to find out more about BoxDeck, please follow the link in the description. Many thanks for listening.