News
8 Ways We Have Helped The World’s Best Companies
3rd August 22
Over the years, we have worked with some of the world’s best companies to help improve their processes, efficiency and productivity. In doing so, we have also helped these businesses to…
- Improve operational productivity and drive profits – By concentrating on operations during peak trading periods, we discover opportunities to drive sales and profits. Our business improvement consultants helped a travel format coffee shop increase the number of coffees they could make in an hour by 25%, resulting in higher sales with the same operating costs, plus shorter queues and lots more happy customers
- Lower operating costs – We quantify how much time delivers value for customers versus time spent on essential tasks (such as filling shelves and essential compliance checks). In highlighting this, we create a case for change, be it reviewing how many times stock is handled or implementing electronic shelf edge labels. By using our study results and shifting the balance to spend more time on things customers value, a high street retailer increased customer-facing time by 40%
- Improve customer satisfaction – Optimising customer-facing activity frees up colleagues to deliver a quality experience instead of struggling with cumbersome processes and systems, such as;
a) needing a supervisor to sign-off a refund
b) Click and Collect orders stored far from the pick-up point
c) double entering data into a till and CRM system Putting systems in place that shave off seconds is hugely valuable in the long run. Our experts have helped one fast food retailer reduce wait times and increase capacity by optimising workstations set-ups to ensure everything is close to hand. Another retailer has changed the stickers being used to seal gift bags, avoiding the extra seconds they were spending wrestling a sticker off a backing sheet - Simplify colleagues’ lives – Using technology to migrate from time-consuming paperwork tasks to digital management helps in many ways, such as logging chiller temperature checks and over-engineered cashing up routines, enabling colleagues to finish work faster. But technology can also bring complexity, such as systems which send unnecessary email notifications to managers. Something as simple as reviewing default settings can streamline management of the daily email load
- Lower stock – Overstock results in more movement and more counting. Our experts have recently calculated the cost of every extra touch for a retailer, allowing them to make evidence-based decisions about workload and stock handling between stores and the warehouse
- Reduce waste – By measuring downtime (i.e. when there are more colleagues deployed than the customer demand requires), we quantify wasted time, providing a rationale to free-up excess colleague hours and invest them into growing sales at busier times
- Operate with fewer people – Our studies generate insights that highlight opportunities to change the way you operate. On average, this equates to 5% of operating costs, making savings and freeing up resources for new initiatives
- Make sustainable improvements – Our studies also enable leadership teams to make considered changes to their operations based on evidence. Using relevant benchmarking and observations from our onsite productivity experts, we highlight sustainable improvements
Would your business benefit from any of these? Get in touch with our process improvement consultants today to find out how we can help.