Lean Transformation for Belgian retailers Planet Parfum & Di (beauty sector)
2015
Our mission
- Professionalize in store operations and ensure consistent good service
- Reduce costs by reducing temp / interim labor force through efficiency increases
- Enable cultural/skill shift of store managers and ensure more personalized service
- Build internal Lean team that will be able to push lean autonomously further
End Results
- After 12 months :Staff costs – 9% mostly without forced firing ( = +/- 3Mio€/yr savings)
- Improved service offer as requested (professional in store resource planning; increased personnel service; strong decrease in Out of stocks, cleaner, more attractive stores …) resulting in initial increase in sales of 1-2 %.
- In the stores a customer centric culture with focus on problem solving was installed
- Autonomous Lean team introduced Lean in the supply chain reducing cost with 25%
Approach
- Through a mini diagnostic, the whole MT was convinced of the potential of Lean retailing to address their main operational issues
- Then in both chains, in selected pilot stores, a full Lean program was designed including required tools, procedures and IT adjustments and tuned till desired impact was reached.
- Within these pilots an internal team with a mix of managers, employees and shop managers was coached and mentored by CSI to perform
- The diagnostic that extended and refined the findings of the mini diagnostic through
- Mystery shopping and customer reviews
- More detailed and full network data & process analysis
- Observations and measurements in the stores of daily routines and planning including waste analysis
- Design
- Design a new scheduling tool for the shops
- Reorganize the storage room and the cash registers area
- Improve shelving ergonomics and al other main routines (including cleaning)
- Negotiate with the unions to implement the new procedure package
- Implementation
- Install all tools + procedures in multiple stores to test and tune for target impact
- Install concrete instore managers toolkit to allow pick new role
- Design roll out, (internally) recruit and coach the roll out teams
- This Lean program was then rolled out throughout both networks mainly leveraging the own internal organization
Main challenges
- Changing old habits engrained almost in DNA of more senior staff
- Installing true coaching skills with people not used to really manage other people
- Deal with negative impact from fierce competition of Watson Group (Kruidvat, Paris XL..)
- Get unions on board to support the program