Most of the impact of the cyberattack that devastated M&S’s operations back in April will be behind it by next month, CEO Stuart Machin told shareholders at the firm’s annual general meeting on Tuesday.
The company has seen a partial recovery of its operations in recent weeks but is still not at full strength with half of its online store not yet open. That means it continues to lose millions of pounds worth of potential sales as it has done for the last few months.
But the webstore will be fully restored within the next four weeks, and other systems that are currently being rebuilt will be operating by August.
That operational recovery doesn’t appear to be a 100% certainty, as is often the case with such IT-related issues, but it’s pretty close and the CEO appears optimistic. “I’m really hoping by August, the majority of this is behind us, and customers will see the full M&S,” Machin said.
The company has already said it will take a hit to its profitability adding up to hundreds of millions of pounds, although insurance will mitigate some of this.
M&S appears to have been the worst affected of a number of businesses globally that suffered cyber attacks in late spring, including luxury department store Harrods and one of the world’s leading fashion brands Dior.
