What It Does: Boots specialises in the manufacturing, distribution, and marketing of beauty products such as soaps and creams, as well as pharmaceuticals. Boots also provides hearing and eye care services and is into large-scale retail.
Mission: The firm’s mission statement is to be Britain’s most socially responsible retailer in the beauty and health market.
Size and Presence: Boots has thousands of employees working across 2,200 retail stores in the UK.
Best Known For: Boots is one of the largest retailers in the UK. The firm is best known for its loyalty card programme, Boots Advantage Card. Boots is known as the brain behind several popular beauty and health products. The company is best known for developing Ibuprofen.
The Good Bits: Boots offers its new intakes a promising career. The company offers several attractive incentives to its employees. Employees get discounts on company products. Boots has an inclusive culture.
The Not-So-Good Bits: The pay can be better.
This company’s origin goes back to the 19th century. John Boot established Boots in 1849. In 1883, the company was incorporated as Boot and Co. Ltd. 5 years later, the company was named Boots Pure Drug Company Ltd. The company was sold to an American drug firm but came back to British ownership when the financial condition in North America worsened. In 1971, the company changed its name again to The Boots Company Limited. In the 60s, Boots ventured into drug research and manufacturing when it developed Ibuprofen. In 1987, this earned the firm the Queen's Award for Technical Achievement. That same year, the firm established Boots Optician Ltd, which became the second-biggest optics retail chain in the UK.
In 1994, Boots sold off its prescription drugs arm to a German pharmaceutical company, BASF. In 1998, Boots ventured into dental care. It also offered facials and other cosmetics services to customers. Towards the end of 2004, Boots sold its laser eye surgery operations to Optical Express. In 2005, Boots agreed to a merger deal with Alliance UniChem to form Alliance Boots Plc. The deal was completed in 2006. This new company was purchased in 2007 for £11.1 billion, a move that privatised the firm. In 2019, the company announced that it would close about 200 underperforming stores.
Boots is the company to be because it’s more than a firm. It’s a large team and community that comprises different individuals united by a common goal and vision. The company believes in the strength of collaboration to achieve excellence and create strong bonds among its employees. There's respect for authority, and the employees are treated fairly and encouraged to speak up when they have an opinion. The spirit of positivity is infectious to freshers and interns. The inclusive culture in the company is admirable. At Boots, you’ll see different ethnicities, religious beliefs, sexualities, gender identities, and socioeconomic backgrounds.
Boots have promising career opportunities for its apprentices and new graduates. Its apprenticeship programme lasts for a year, and it trains school leavers for a full-time job at the firm. Through job observations, intensive inductions, on-the-job training, networking and e-learning modules, Boots nurtures its apprentices and equips them with the relevant skills, qualifications, and expertise to become high-value employees. The graduate programme is of a similar benefit. New graduates are exposed to networking opportunities and are assigned a mentor that will guide them and monitor their development. They get to partake in essential projects and receive the necessary resources to become future industry leaders.
Boots pays its fresh graduates an average annual salary of £25,000.
Boots collaborate with NGOs to provide support for communities in the UK.
There's no widely published controversy in the UK.