The South African Chamber of Commerce UK, in partnership with Deloitte & Touche, hosted Raymond Ackerman and his wife Wendy Ackerman last week at a talk entitled: “Can South African businesses have a soul?”
Ackerman studied at the University of Cape Town under Professor WH Hutt. Hutt was a fierce opponent to monopolistic practices, a champion of the rights of ordinary people and a pioneer thinker on the role of the trade unions. Ackerman learnt from Hutt that, in order to have a successful business, your customer must remain king. These contrary teachings were so foreign to Ackerman’s father, Gus Ackerman, the he had several severe talks with his son about the misguided teachings and folly he was attempting to follow.
Ackerman’s principles for business rest are best explained by the metaphor of a four-legged table. These legs are administration, merchandise, promotions and social responsibility. Each of these legs are required in equal measure in order to keep the table balanced. Profit is given as much weight as customer satisfaction, as is civic responsibility.
Ackerman implemented these principles in the Greatermans group, and the initial days of Checkers in the mid-sixties. At the time, they were novel and progressive, and ultimately resulted in Ackerman being fired from the Greaterman’s group on 6 October 1966. Ackerman tells a touching story in his memoir Hearing Grasshoppers Jump, describing how he went to Zoo Lake after being dismissed and walked around the lake for several hours trying to figure out what he could do to try and keep his family afloat. He wanted to find a way to keep relive poverty and to provide for his young family.
Building Pick n Pay were not easy at first. At a time when Ackerman didn’t have the funds to even comfortably support his family, he dared to dream of the impossible and declared to a journalist that he was going to start a new business. This announcement sent shockwaves throughout the South African business world and investors began flooding in, offering the much needed capital to start Pick n Pay.
The legacy of an 83-year-old titan leaves many questions. What would Ackerman like to see happen to his empire? Talks have been held within the Ackerman family on a monthly basis for many years to decide if the business should be sold “after Raymond Ackerman” or whether it should remain within the family. In order to avoid the “trustafarian” effect within his own family, Ackerman has been consulting with American firms for years to ensure his family doesn’t fall into the trappings of wealth. Ackerman’s grandmother and father struggled tremendously with poverty, and thankfully these bad times won’t ever affect his children and grandchildren. A sense of pragmatism and brutal honesty is clearly part of the family strategy.
During Ackerman’s talk at the South African Chamber of Commerce UK, Ackerman was asked if he thought enough had been done by South African business to combat corruption. He admitted that it had not. “I don’t think we as businessman have tried to influence the government sufficiently as we have been too busy with our own lives,” said Ackerman. “The gorvenrment has done some very good things but there are a lot of things that should be done differently, particularly when it comes to serving the [country]… Business has not been as outspoken as it should have been.” Ackerman did go on to say that this was in fact a remit of Pick n Pay’s social responsibility leg, so he intended to address it further with his company and his peers within South Africa.
Ackerman has famously taken the South African government to task on several issues during his extensive career. The days of the “cigarette wars” in the mid-sixties saw Ackerman buying up the entire supply of South Africa’s cigarettes in order to break the tyrannical pricing regulations of the day. Fights for the fuel prices and deregulation have always been present between Ackerman and the government.
Photo by John Cole-Morgan
In his book The Four Legs of a Table, Ackerman explains that complaints can build your business. Listening to the real issue of a complaint can help businessman decide where improvements can be made and how a business can be improved and help keep the table level, putting the customer as the retail king.
In our interview, Ackerman revealed an anecdote to explain this. One afternoon his driver had collected him from the office and they came across a woman whose car was filled to the brim with Checkers shopping bags. Given the history of Checkers for Ackerman, he asked his driver to follow the car, and they ended up in Fish Hoek. Upon pulling into the driveway, the lady driving the car she was aghast at meeting the world-famous Ackerman. Ackerman started to explain that the lady shouldn’t worry: he was very happily married and he only wanted to ask her why she hadn’t shopped at Pick n Pay. She explained that ten years ago a lady in the Pick n Pay didn’t honour the no-questions-asked refund policy, after which she refused to shop in Pick n Pay again. Ackerman was so upset by this that he wrote to her and every one of her family members to talk through their boycott of Pick n Pay. Not many CEOs would do this, but sadly this era of customer care is vital. It built an empire and hopefully it will inspire the next generation.
Header image by Ronel van Zyl