The first episode looks at how the worst recession in the history of John Lewis takes its toll on the business. The half-yearly results send shock waves throughout the company.
This edition sees the steps that are being taken by the business to boost sales and control costs; the fashion floors are being revamped, an enormous new shop is being built in Wales, a brand new distribution centre has opened in Milton Keynes and to control costs, the old warehouse in Stevenage is closing down. Jobs are being lost and there is a pervading sense of unease in the corridors of the London Head Office.
Programme three looks to the future. John Lewis is expanding its fashion offering online and we learn what their customers are expecting from a brave new world of 21st-century shopping. The big question facing John Lewis is whether they can embrace this online world without compromising on what it considers to be the business's Holy Grail - personal and specialist service.
From the shop floor to head offfice, Cherry Healey goes behind the scenes of one of the nation's biggest stores to find out how it survives the pressure cooker of Christmas. Since more than 50 per cent of many retailers' annual profits are made in the last quarter of the year, for John Lewis and its competitors, Christmas has become a year-long, full-scale military campaign. Charting the relentless countdown to Christmas 2015 - from the midsummer Christmas press launch, to the honing of the ad, to the discounting frenzy of Black Friday - Cherry sees the John Lewis team tackling the multitude of challenges presented by our changing shopping habits. In the run-in to this Christmas, they have to contend with customer complaints, website woes and unpredictable buying behaviour. Cherry discovers how John Lewis is now catering for a new breed of savvy online shoppers. The competition used to be rivals on the high street, like Debenhams and M&S, but now the retailer has to contend with a host of online rivals too.
Steph McGovern explores how John Lewis rose to become one of Britain's best-loved brands, and the bold decisions they're making in the face of the unstoppable rise of online shopping
