Collaborating To Uncover Drivers Of Success
Problem
A large global retailer wanted to improve sales and profitability in their full price retail stores. The company had recently hired a new SVP to lead the division and had organized their first onsite workshop with key stakeholders including store managers. The goal of the workshop was to understand the drivers of success in the stores and develop a plan to prioritize and implement those strategies more broadly. It was critical to the company and new SVP that the workshops were both collaborative and actionable. The attending stakeholders needed to feel that their voices were heard, and their input included in the identified initiatives.
Excelerate was engaged by the SVP to leverage their expertise to plan and facilitate the meeting in a way that would best uncover detailed areas of opportunity to improve retail success. In addition to the workshop preparation & onsite facilitation, given the importance of showing action out of the workshops, Excelerate would summarize the findings and present a tangible action plan on how to best move forward.
Approach
Excelerate began the project by reviewing existing data on retail stores and documenting gaps in information. The team then interviewed eight key stakeholders to begin uncovering those gaps and forming some early hypothesis on key drivers of retail success. Excelerate designed a structure for the workshop that would vet the pre-identified areas of opportunity and encourage both corporate and retail stakeholders to collaborate on a deep level.
Thirty stakeholders attended the two-day, onsite event including the EVP of Retail. Excelerate facilitated 13 hours of discussions which included ice breakers, key activities, a review of retail data & current findings, and collaborative breakout sessions. Excelerate also had the stakeholders review a retail journey from the perspective customer so they could understand the retail store experience form a common, aligned perspective as a way to uncover opportunities that might otherwise not be identified.
Results
The workshops were executed successfully and created a strong foundation for collaboration between retail managers and internal stakeholders. It brought alignment on what is happening at the corporate level and how that impacts the store and vice-versa, building a common understanding among the team. Additionally, looking at the detailed journey from the customer point of view and getting into detail on what is happening at the store level that is impacting the customer experience (“the reality of the store’) revealed many interesting insights and opportunities. As a result of the sessions, over 30 opportunities for improvement were identified that spanned across several divisions. Ten of those opportunities were prioritized for implementation – with Excelerate providing detailed next steps for each. Three of these were identified as quick wins and are currently being rolled out and the others are in process of being implemented.