KSS January eKourier

FEATURE

The year was 2012, I was sitting in the Boardroom of the of the largest self storage company in the world, turnover more than 1 billion US. I was surrounded by the CEO and the Senior Leaders from each department of the organisation. In my mind I was thinking how amazing is this that the most senior people of the largest self storage company in the world could be bothered coming together to give their time to someone from a much smaller self storage company in little old Australia. LIVING IN THE 90'S

T he reasons go back before my time, to the relationships forged by Sam Kennard over the years prior. That’s probably a story for another time. While I sat in this Boardroom literally star struck, the Senior Leaders each gave a presentation: Acquisitions, Construction, Operations, Learning and Development and Revenue Management. The level of detail and insight blew my mind. I couldn’t make notes fast enough to capture all the valuable information I was receiving. The company of course was Public Storage. It’s hard to commit everything to memory that happened that day. There was one thing that has stuck with me to this day. Public Storage operates over 2000 locations across most states in the US. At the time and to this day, Public Storage were achieving an average occupancy of ~94%, Mind Blown! To give some perspec-

tive, around the same time KSS was 74 locations with an average occupancy ~78%. As I left the Boardroom that day, the one thought in my mind was how do they achieve that level of occupancy and why can’t we achieve a similar result. From that time I have been motivated to get our little organisa- tion into the 90's. This dream was reflected in our goal from our 2016 strategic conference Momentum, to achieve 90% occupancy at a rate of $30 by 2020.

a wonderful achievement, thanks in part to COVID, but also to a combina- tion of influences in particular our Team Members who have worked diligently throughout the last two years to get us most of the way to our dream. Well done and thankyou to everyone for the significant role you have all played in realising our goal to achieve occupancy over 90%. The influence of COVID on demand for storage will not last forever. Our next challenge will be to maintain high occupancies while growing revenue long after the dust settles on COVID. In the meantime, be proud of what you have achieved, and the 1,000's of people you have helped during this time of massive disruption. A strong reminder to not underestimate the true value of self storage, our service and how it helps the community.

90x30x2020

An ambitious target which we didn’t achieve in 2020.

Spring forward to today and our average occupancy for the group is over 90% and over 92% for our like for like stores. Our rate per square continues to grow. This is

Darren Marshall Chief Operating Officer

10 Kennards Kourier Jan 2022