Retail Business Efficiency Case Study

Retail business efficiency

Business process improvement example

A leading UK high street retailer wanted to understand how to make the most of their payroll budget and increase their return on investment. ReThink was asked to identify opportunities to help save time, and make operations even more efficient.

What was the challenge?

Our most recent store measurement study was carried out for the retailer back in 2022. Since then, a lot has changed operationally, including process adjustments, a change to the physical loyalty scheme card, and a move from paper-based processes to digital tablets.

Without refreshing the work study data, it was difficult to determine how much time each of the changes was saving and what their combined impact was on store efficiency. There was a concern that some things might be taking longer. But without the data, they could not be certain.

To achieve the biggest positive impact on their costs, the retailer wanted to concentrate on store tasks that had the potential to save a significant amount of time. That could be hours on bigger tasks that happen a few times a year (such as a promotion changeover), or seconds on a process that occurs thousands of times a day (such as a till transaction).

Gaining an understanding of time taken on these core tasks would enable them to:

  • Improve internal understanding: Their retail teams could share the data with other departments, helping them to more fully understand how their actions and decisions impact store operations, customer satisfaction scores, and ultimately, frequency of store visits
  • Have more control over costs: It would enable them to get the most from their budget and increase their return on investment 
  • Concentrate on customers: If processes had slowed down, implementing a resolution would mean time could be redirected to advising customers – which is the most effective way for the retailer to drive business value, by increasing sales and customer satisfaction

Because of ReThink’s credibility within the retail industry, as well as the retailer’s past experiences working with us as a trusted, external partner, they asked us to:

  • Provide up-to-date information to inform their decision-making
  • Compare current processes, ways of working, and efficiency results to those from the 2022 study 
  • Use our productivity benchmarking data to compare their efficiency to other retailers and provide an invaluable outside-in perspective 

What did we do

Working together, it was decided to carry out studies in more stores than in 2022, to increase the data sample overall and also to ensure the study represented stores of every format including in shopping centres and high streets.

Taking place over several days in 15 stores across the UK and Ireland, our productivity experts observed thousands of customer conversations and operational processes.

We carried out:

  • Activity studies to measure customer interactions and store processes multiple times across all 15 locations to provide a robust average time per task
  • Comparisons of the freshly-measured activity times to the older 2022 set to provide definitive evidence on how process times had changed
  • Team-wide efficiency studies that provided an overview of how time is spent across the days and by store format, along with a view of how that has changed compared to older studies
  • Benchmarking of how time is spent to identify opportunities versus their retail comparator set

How did it help?

The results of our analysis:

  • Confirmed suspicions: Directly comparing the new data to that of 2022 meant there was now evidence to prove there had indeed been a slowdown of some processes over the years as more complexity had been added in
  • Determined impact on costs: We were able to confirm the cost impact of the slower processes and the upside from the improved operations too 
  • Obtained up-to-date insights: We provided a fresh set of data that can be used in their workload labour model, giving them confidence in their budget and allowing them to allocate payroll in proportion to the level of tasks being carried out
  • Compared processes to other retailers: Through our productivity benchmarking data, we provided industry insights into where they can make improvements compared with other retailers
  • Obtained actionable insights: Our analysis identified the biggest opportunities for them to tackle, and their internal teams are now busy making the efficiency improvements

Through this valuable information, the retailer could quantify both their efficiencies and inefficiencies, adding weight with senior leaders when presenting an opportunity for change. 

If you want to find out how efficient your business really is, speak to our team and discover how we can transform your operations.