CASE STUDY - INTERNATIONAL GROCER

Our Client is a national grocery retailer operating over 400 stores throughout the United Kingdom. RGIS introduced its Smartspace® solution suite to centralize store layout planning to improve individual store and company-wide performance while significantly cutting costs.

The Client was focused on increasing profitability through cost-cutting operational efficiencies and improved revenue productivity on a store-by-store basis. The Client required a macro space-planning solution that would support its global and local needs, optimize space productivity, provide central access to and manipulation of reports, and integrate seamlessly with existing technology.

More specifically, the Client required that the solution support the various planning, ordering, scheduling, and workflow requirements of multiple business units and locations including Merchandising, Purchasing and Estates, so that the company's operations were unified and efficient while stores in various geographic locations were individually optimized.

Beyond the definition of global and local store layout, store clustering was a requirement so that like stores could be analyzed and planned together, ensuring that particular strengths and issues were accommodated.  The Client required a precise level of detail so that planning of all departments' layouts, promotional space, flows, fixtures, and product lifecycles across the chain and within stores was supported. 

Finally, dashboard and custom reporting and analysis were critical to support ongoing refinements to operational efficiency.  The Client also requested centralized reporting access to simplify interaction by diverse groups within the organization. 

The Client requested a phased approach so that immediate benefits could be realized from the initial investment: 

• The first phase focused on the planning process:  reducing the time from concept to roll-out, surveying stores to define universal and custom layouts, and effectively managing resets and refurbishment.

• The second phase focused on systems integration, data, and reporting:  ensuring that the macro space-planning solution could interact with the existing corporate technology so that reports delivered actionable insights.

Given these considerable demands across multiple business units and functions, a turnkey, fully-integrated, best-of-breed, macro space planning suite was the Client’s best option:  RGIS' Smartspace® Solution.

The Client purchased numerous Smartspace® licenses together with a Smartspace® Central Store Database to consolidate operational measurement—which additionally would deliver a fully integrated solution from store layout capture, to data analysis, and opportunistic resets. 

For the implementation of Phase 1, the store layout planning phase, RGIS combined its long history of industry expertise and proven implementation methods to introduce the benefits of Smartspace® through six progressive efforts:

• The planning process began with category space allocation to ensure that each had appropriate assignment in proportion and general location.

• Next, product line space allocation provided additional detail and planning insight.

• Planogram creation and adjacency control with Smartspace® proprietary software built highly-detailed 3-dimensional store layouts which enabled visualization and placement strategy.

• Definition of product flow and placement allowed the Client to plan their customers' entire experience:   from entrance, through aisles and sections, to check-out.

• Centralized planning allowed collaboration so that various departments could now appreciate the coordinated and integrated approach that supported store, category, division, and corporate objectives.

• Finally, key metrics were defined, and detailed reporting created, so that plans could be iteratively improved based on new learnings, seasonal and promotional requirements, local and global success.

For the second phase— systems integration and data application— RGIS' team led the Client through the project that followed industry-standard development practices.  The standard process ensured that all data collected and analyzed could be used to support planning decisions.  Again, the project was defined to ensure that progressive development supported all Phase 1-defined reporting requirements:

• Requirements Gathering and Discovery:

  • RGIS surveyed and documented all current processes so that diverse operating practices were understood.
    

  • Assessment of data sources and quality ensured the timeliness and accuracy of all existing sources so that new data would complement—not compromise—analytic results for Purchasing, Store Planning, Visual Merchandising, and Marketing teams.

• Smartspace® Solution Definition:

  • RGIS defined the new and revised processes in support of agreed requirements.

  • RGIS defined the method to integrate Smartspace® with existing technology, including resident CAD tools, and wrote specifications to support systems, operational, and user requirements.

• Smartspace® Development and Testing: 

  • RGIS led development to integrate Smartspace® with existing technology.

  • RGIS defined processes to extract, map, convert, and stage historic data so that it was uniform and synchronized for analysis.  RGIS imported and integrity-tested massive volumes of historical data.

  • All unit and systems testing was completed satisfactorily to confirm system integrity.

• Analysis and Insights: 

  • Key metrics and standard reports were developed to support iterative decision-making. 

  • Analysis identified trends of what was selling and where to inform floor plan, product, and fixture resets that improved productivity and profitability.

  • Analysis of cross-store performance allowed best practices to be introduced universally where appropriate, and in like stores locally.

RGIS' partnership with our Client delivered both Smartspace® introduction project phases on time and within budget, due in large part to the exclusive focus on objectives to improve insight and efficiency.

RGIS’s Client recognized numerous significant benefits, among them: 

• Improved efficiency was realized from the quick conversion from planogram to floor plan, allowing the Client to seize opportunities as they were recognized in single stores, districts, or company-wide.

• Opportunities were more readily recognized given the new store cluster definition that provided precise categorization of over-performing and under-performing stores.  With these measurable insights, the appropriate course of action could be taken to replicate or address performance contributors.

• Improved productivity was realized from the reports and analysis introduced.  As a result, floor plans, promotional space, flows, fixtures, and lifecycle processes were actively managed and optimized on an ongoing basis.
  

• Costs were contained as central ordering functionality enabled efficient bulk ordering of required assets.

• Revenue was increased given the reporting insights that measured performance by zone, product allocation and category adjacency, allowing store-specific and global changes to improve results.