Retail is a highly-competitive industry with generally tight margins. Managing inventory, leases and labor costs alone make retail profitability a difficult balancing act at the best of times. But that’s not all. Today’s retailers must adapt to rapidly changing customer sentiments, weather and the pressures of e-commerce. Add a pandemic to the mix and it becomes clear why it has been so difficult for retailers to turn a profit.
Protecting those tight margins is store execution. Today’s store execution has to be easy, has to be fast and has to be affordable. Here are 3 steps to easier and faster store execution for the lean and agile retailer.
Step 1: Focus
Choose focus areas. Identify standards. Set your sights on flawless execution. Execution keeps your customers and staff safe, your operations lean and the company financially viable. Focus on what you need to achieve and execute relentlessly.
Step 2: Digitize
Paper, email and Excel are slow, error-prone and deprive you of the data you need to manage field execution. District and area managers need better and faster tools.
Instead, use an app and the cloud to automate checklists, action plans and tasks. Deploy and verify standards, tasks and corrective actions to the stores with ease. Get real time results and photo verification.
Step 3: Cut costs
Become more efficient and faster with the execution of store programs and tasks, while cutting costs. Efficiency is not a nice-to-have; it is the secret ingredient of the lean retailer. Do more with less. Automate to save time and money.
OTHER Retail Execution RESOURCES
Refer to Retail Execution category for how-tos and best practices for retail and hospitality execution of brand standards and programs.
