The boss of Marks & Spencer has said he hopes to have the majority of the impact from its damaging cyber attack “behind us” by August.
Stuart Machin, chief executive of the high street giant, said he hopes its online operations will be running “fully” within four weeks as it continues to recover.
In April, M&S was forced to halt online orders after it was targeted by hackers.
Customer personal data – which could have included names, email addresses, postal addresses and dates of birth – was taken during the attack.
M&S revealed that the hack was caused by “human error” and would cost it around £300m.
Last month, it restarted online sales through its website to allow shoppers to buy a selection of its best-selling fashion ranges and new products for home delivery to England, Scotland and Wales.
Bosses told the firm’s annual general meeting in London today that click and collect and next-day delivery operations have not yet returned, but should be back within weeks.
“Currently, half of online is open but not areas like click and collect. Within the next four weeks we are hoping for the whole of online to be fully on,” Stuart Machin said.
“Then our focus will be getting the Donington site back and running. We’re hoping that by August we will have the vast majority of this behind us and people can see the full M&S,” he added.
Chairman Archie Norman highlighted that the company has been progressing through its recovery programme to return operations to normal.
“Every week new systems are coming back,” he said.
“Hopefully in a few weeks we’ll be humming – we’re hopeful we’ll be back to full operations very shortly,” he added.
Mr Norman also highlighted that executive pay deals could be impacted by any drop in financial performance caused by the cyber attack this financial year.
“The financial effect of this will be taken into account with regards to incentive pay, but it’s too early to say,” he said.
“We are planning to come back stronger and want to go gangbusters for the rest of the year, but whatever the impact on shareholders, that comes through in remuneration as well,” he stated.
Shareholders are voting on the group’s pay deal for the year to March, which saw Mr Machin’s overall pay packet jump by 39% to #7.1 million, driven by performance-linked bonuses.
ally hoping by August, the majority of this is behind us, and customers will see the full M&S,” Machin said.
