Editor's Note 45

decade of unprecedented growth? At last week’s Retail Week conference in London, even Marks & Spencer chief executive Stuart Rose voiced his concerns about his own senior team, saying that not all of them currently have all the experience that is needed to succeed—dealing with a tough trading environment being one of the areas of experience that they lack. Rose reckoned—and he has been backed up by other retailers this week—that retailers are going to have to tough it out until 2010. In this market, the value proposition—the equation calculated by price and quality—will be more important than price alone.