Inside the comeback of Debenhams and the strategy behind its digital reinvention

Reviving a heritage brand can look like an impossible task. When Daniel Finley joined Debenhams in 2022, the retailer had already gone through administration and many observers believed its best days were behind it.

But as Finley explains on the Business Leader Podcast, the turnaround began with a simple insight: the problem was not demand for the brand, but the economics of how it operated.

“The challenge wasn’t that tens of millions of consumers weren’t shopping with it,” he says. “There was huge demand. It was that the economics were wrong.”

Instead of trying to recreate the department store model that had struggled for years, Finley chose to rethink the business entirely. Debenhams would become a digital marketplace; a platform that connects brands with customers rather than owning the stock itself.

The shift dramatically changes the economics of retail. Instead of buying inventory months in advance and carrying the risk of unsold goods, partners hold the stock while Debenhams provides the platform and customer reach.

“We’re not forward ordering that stock. We’re not having to make the buying decisions about what sells or what doesn’t sell,” Finley explains.

The result has been rapid growth. From administration only a few years ago, the business has rebuilt into a digital ecosystem with “15,000 partners” and £654m in gross merchandise value, generating £25m in EBITDA.

Finley’s experience earlier in his career shaped the approach. Before Debenhams, he spent a decade at JD Sports, helping scale the company’s multichannel strategy during a period of rapid expansion. That experience reinforced the importance of leadership and ambition in building high-performing organisations.

“First and foremost, it was leadership. And it was people,” he says, reflecting on JD’s growth into a global retail powerhouse.

At Debenhams, the same principle guided the turnaround. Finley assembled a team of people who believed the brand could be rebuilt despite widespread scepticism. Attitude, he argues, matters more than anything else.

“Attitude is the most important thing to me,” he says. “If we mobilise and organise ourselves, we can get the job done.”

That belief has been essential during the early stages of rebuilding momentum. In the beginning, the marketplace launched with just five partners. Today it has tens of thousands, but the journey required persistence and constant outreach.

“You’re knocking on the door, the phone call goes unanswered, the email goes unread,” he recalls. “It’s about never giving up.”

Momentum eventually shifts. The same partners who once hesitated started to approach them instead, a turning point that signalled that the strategy was working.

Alongside the commercial model, Finley’s leadership philosophy draws inspiration from sport. He believes high-performing teams share the same traits whether on the pitch or in the boardroom. Success rarely follows a straight line, and resilience is critical.

“The path to success is not straight and it’s not easy,” he says. “There’s going to be loads of challenges along the way and it’s how you deal with those challenges.”

For Finley, the ambition goes beyond rebuilding a retailer. Debenhams aims to become “Britain’s online department store”, a curated digital platform bringing together thousands of brands in one destination.

It is a model built on execution rather than nostalgia. The brand may have centuries of history, but its future depends on adapting to the economics and expectations of modern commerce.