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Background on Briscoe Group NZ The company I have been allocated for this assessment is Briscoe Group New Zealand, a well-known and long-established retail group operating across the homeware and sporting goods sectors. The firm owns and manages three major retail brands: Brisoces Homeware, Rebel Sport, and Living & Giving, across New Zealand these brands have strong national visibility with their two primary retail brands having 90+ physical outlets, as well as supplements by a substantial and growing inline retail presence. Briscoe Group sits within the broader New Zealand consumer retail industry, an industry that has been shaped heavily by changing household patterns, shifts in consumer confidence, supply chain pressures , inflation, and ongoing competition from global online retailers. Briscoe Group positions itself in the value driver, promotional retail segment, known for large national sales events and a strategy focused on scale, inventory efficiency, and aggressive pricing. Accessing My Firm's Annual Reports Following the assessments instructions, I navigated to the Investors section of the Briscoe Group website and downloaded the three most recent full Annual Reports: Annual Report 2024 Annual Report 2023 Annual Report 2022 These reports provide four years of comparable financial information and form the foundation for the spreadsheet analysis in later steps of the assessment. Browsing the annual reports and investor documents also gave me a first look at the company's tone, priorities, and long-term strategic direction. Initial KCQ's from Reading the 2024 Annual Report Realising Briscoe Group is Basically Running an Entire Universe Turns out Briscoe Group aren't just buying in from Temu and relabeling. Upon opening the 2024 Annual Report, I had expected to be greeted with a few pages of cheap toasters, pillows and half-price frying pans. Instead, it felt like I had wandered into the operations manual of a small nation-state. Logistics netweorks, supplier negotiations, inventory algoriths, property leases, and digital platforms- Briscoe Group is running an entire ecosystem behind the scenes. Making me realise how little consideration I had made towards the sheer complexity behind a spurr of the moment thought to 'go and grab a quick sale item' trips. Sustainability: More Than Just a Tick-and-Flick Exercise Living on the land, the word sustainability  usually triggers an eye-roll—partly because we know environmental care matters, but also because Australian policy shifts so often that compliance can feel like a tick-and-flick game rather than meaningful practice. Because of that, I expected Briscoe Group’s sustainability section to be the usual token paragraph about recycling cardboard. Instead, I was genuinely surprised. Their Annual Report contains detailed commitments to ethical sourcing, energy-efficient store upgrades, carbon tracking, and transparent supply chain audits. It actually made me laugh at myself—here I am constantly forgetting my reusable shopping bags, while Briscoe Group is busy analysing LED efficiency across an entire national store network. Stores. Retail Challenges: A Rollercoaster No One Signed Up For The Annual Report also highlights just how chaotic the retail environment can be. Between inflation messing with household budgets, supply chain delays, and customers deciding mid-aisle whether they really do need that gadget, Briscoe Group is constantly riding a rollercoaster built by external forces. It did make me pause and consider the weight shoppers across the country do have, and how consumers shape the firm's revenue patterns. With competition increasing as a response to the reduced barriers to entry in this modern world the ability for long-term brands to continue to remain an attractive and retain competitive advantage is far less predictable that ever before- and at the mercy of the mood of the nation. Lease Liabilities: Or, Does This Note Have More Pages Than My Assignment? One part of the statements that left me blinking repeatedly was the section on lease liabilities under NZ IFRS 16. Trying to interpret the dozens of store leases and how those are valued, measured, and reported on felt like reading a novel where every character had the same name. While I was never disillusioned to think complex and far-reaching retailers would not be complex, this aspect of a retail network had never entered my mind. Imagining the amount of accounting work that sits behind every shop front. SO... MANY... OVERHEADS. To consider just Briscoe Group as just another retail group across the many across the country and the level of structure was both humbling and quite overwhelming. A Strategy That's Basically 'Calm, Cash-Positive, and Not Panicking' As I read through Briscoe Group’s strategy, it became clear they’re essentially the financially stable aunt of the retail world—steady, sensible, low-debt and very cash-conscious. While that level of discipline is admirable, it also made me wonder whether this cautious pace could become a disadvantage in a retail environment that’s moving faster every year, especially online. With global competitors accelerating, customer expectations changing overnight, and digital retail becoming the real battleground, there’s a part of me that questions whether “slow and steady” will keep them competitive—or leave them puffing behind the pack. It will be interesting to see, as I dig into the annual reports for the next step, just how adaptable the company has been in practice and what the numbers reveal about their ability to evolve in a rapidly shifting market.

The past is fixed, the future is uncertain- accounting assists in preparing options and resilience for volatility. Weak commodity market, unpredictable weather events, and equipment breakdown, can flip profit margins on a dime. Recognising that our accounts show where we have been, but cannot predict what is ahead, has pushed me to consider risk buffers- flexible/seasonal labour, or spreading contract types between grain, cattle and earthworks. Learning to read our financial statements as a history of choices, not just results. We cannot change the past, but we can model different “what-if” options for business resilience. Accounting is becoming the compass of decision-making, allowing us to apply critical reasoning in determining the levers (pricing, debt, maintenance timing), which can protect margins when conditions are not favourable.

Assets + Expenses = Equity + Revenue + Liabilities – a model linking what we own and spend to how we fund and earn. This is not just a formula; this reflects the business reality we choose to record. For us, the trucks, trailers, earthmoving gear, and workshop gear represent Assets, while diesel, tyres, wages, and maintenance are Expenses. Together, these factors contribute to our equity and profitability. The extended equation reflects that everything, from diesel use to contract income and loan repayments, must balance to show a real picture of the value created or lost each month. Chapter one highlighted that accounting is not a ‘camera’ but a model of our reality. Realising that our monthly MYOB reports are not just admin tasks, but a dashboard revealing where equity is growing or slipping. With this information, I am able to critically assess the impact of which expenses most significantly shift our equity from month to month —and why? Tracking these assists in managing cash flow, allowing us to feel more in control and safeguarding against dry seasons or breakdowns.

Understanding is derived from the use of accounting data to make and review decisions- learning by involvement, not by rote. Typically at the onset of harvest, forecasting of fuel and service costs are estimated- at the competion of harvest we then compare the actual consumption of consumables used, or as our local bean counter would call them ‘expenses’. For example, if diesel was budgeted at $50,000 but ended up costing $65,000, the analysis would pose the question: Were the excess costs due to inefficient machine use, price rises, or excess yields? This chapter reminded me that the reality of our business ultimately is in the numbers. Helping to identify that variance analysis is a learning tool, not criticism. Each season that data is collected improves the next cycle. I now involve our driver team in reviewing how maintenance scheduling and inefficient practices are affecting costs. Using the numbers, builds ownership, helping everyone to understand how their decisions shape our financial results.

Moving cash around is not value creation. Only when revenue exceeds true all-in costs are we creating value for the business. When hauling grain, invoices may appear favorable on paper, with monthly accounts averaging $32,000 per client. However, once expenses such as diesel, wear insurance, driver wages, and repayments are considered, what is the actual value left? Chapter one’s focus on “value” provided a moment for pause and reflection, prompting reconsideration of what profit means. To truly profit, we mustn’t strive to survive month to month; we must strive to add value beyond inputs. This reading allowed space to dig deeper into questions that my husband and I have pondered from time to time, whether some of our routes only lead to value transfer. If a run barely covers fuel and wages, it is not profitable, eroding equity. We now check our contract rates against both variable and capital costs, not just immediate cash flow. Accounting here becomes less about reporting and more about ensuring each kilometre driven adds equity.