It is a minor miracle. A Formula One Grand Prix team, based in the UK, with a largely UK workforce, has won the constructor’s championship for the second year running.

The UK remains a centre of excellence for the racing industry - two thirds of Formula One teams are based here. This is despite two major hurdles. One, an absence of government support. Two, engineering is bizarrely an increasingly unpopular career choice: mechanical engineering students declined as a proportion of the total UK student population by a fifth over the last decade and now account for less than 1% of all students.

What is the relevance for retail, you are thinking? I see Ross Brawn and Jenson Button’s success as a parable for retail. Last winter Honda pulled (almost all) its funding from the team. Its revenue outlook was as uncertain as that of any retailer.

The resulting sponsorship void remained largely unfilled. The team retitled in his own name, Brawn (think of him as retail executive chairman) had to make swingeing and painful cuts to his workforce. Lead driver Button swallowed a 67% salary cut.

The chairman kept his head. In his back pocket he had a 2009 design in which he had some confidence. Rather like a retailer with a new format, he launched at the beginning of the season with a key competitive advantage - a double deck diffuser, since you ask.

Formula One is like retail in that most design and operational improvements are evident to the competition as soon as they are put to use.

So by the time a few races had been run, many other teams had adopted this style of diffuser. No Formula One team can afford to stop innovating. Brawn did not. A key decision, again applicable to retail, is always how much research and development to devote to enhancing this season’s car, and how much resource to next year’s, by when the regulations will inevitably have had another iteration. Racers can be grateful that the evolution of their regulatory environment is slightly more transparent than that facing retailers.

Neither Brawn nor Button showed much sign of panic in the second half of the season. The press insinuated that Button had lost his gloss, as wins were replaced by mid-single digit placings - but which nonetheless kept his points count ticking ahead. At the Brazilian Grand Prix, his innate execution skills were fully apparent. (Retail chief executives should develop a thick skin for uninformed media comments). The team kept a collective cool head, and bagged the driver’s and constructor’s championships.

The humanity and humility of Brawn and Button at the moment of victory were plain to see. Interviewed within seconds of the chequered flag, when emotions could be no higher, Brawn’s first tributes were to those employees that he had had to get rid of last Christmas. No PR scripted speech that. Plenty of lessons for retailers as they face a tricky 2010.

  • Paul Smiddy retail consultant