Empower retailers by optimizing supply chains, increasing store efficiency, and delivering exceptional customer experiences
The supply chain disruptions retailers face and the increased personnel cost is pushing retailers’ margins to the limit. While retailers’ attention has drifted to costs, customers still demand a seamless, personalized, and experiential shopping experience. Retail has witnessed the increased intensity of business trends, including digitalization, omnichannel, customer-centricity, convenience, immediacy, and sustainability.
Pressure is mounting for retail operators to accelerate the whole supply chain in response to consumers’ increasing demands. At Kaizen Institute, we work side-by-side with retailers from all sectors to accelerate the business. We guarantee that the best products, services, and experiences are delivered to the customers in the fastest, most efficient, profitable, and sustainable way.
OMNICHANNEL: Map and redesign the macro processes, their inputs and outputs, and related interactions (SIPOC) to ensure a smooth and coherent experience across channels.
STORE CONCEPT: Reassess the store layout to simultaneously influence the purchasing process and optimize process efficiency.
CUSTOMER SERVICE: Set up customer service and after-sales processes, including returns, complaints, assistance, sale of additional services, etc.
LOYALTY PROGRAMS: Implement personalized loyalty programs, providing customers with a one-to-one seamless experience (customer marketing).
VALUE SELLING: Customize the interaction between the salesperson and the customer instead of a pre-defined and undifferentiated sales pitch. Train the teams on how to approach customers, to increase conversion and retention rates.
SALES TEAM DESIGN: Optimize resource planning, sizing, and allocation to satisfy demand in different scenarios. Build an in-store support structure that allows staff to grow and improve their sales performance.
VISUAL MERCHANDISING: Implement a conversion-oriented layout, following store design principles and best practices. Set up the best cross-selling and upselling processes to increase the value of the average ticket
SALES FUNNEL: Automate and monitor the progress of qualified leads across the sales process, to better fit the marketing and sales activity within the customer journey. Ensure the sales force focuses on high-potential customers.
REPLENISHMENT OPTIMIZATION: Set up robust processes to ensure that the right product is available in the right place and at the right time, according to planograms. Design flexible layouts to minimize non-value-added periods and streamline the entire operation.
PRODUCT PREPARATION: Design a product preparation model that ensures freshness and differentiation, together with a low inventory shrinkage rate.
TEAM SCHEDULING: Implement real-time analytical resource sizing tools to meet demand and minimize queues effectively. Support leaders to free them from operational tasks and turn them into agents for developing polyvalent teams focused on improvement, innovation, and customer service.
LEAN CHECKOUT: Design the layout of the checkout area and define the workstation standard work and service guidelines. Manage waiting queues.
NETWORK DESIGN: Redesign the warehouse and transport networks to reduce cost-to-serve. Reshape the omnichannel order fulfillment system.
WAREHOUSE OPTIMIZATION: Identify and eliminate waste in warehouse operations. Grant warehouse teams flexibility to cater to demand fluctuations while avoiding shipping failures. Streamline and optimize the online fulfillment process.
TRANSPORT OPTIMIZATION: Identify and eliminate waste in transport operations. Synchronize the whole activity between hubs, stores, and carriers. Monitor and react quickly to demand peaks to enable steady omnichannel fulfillment.
SUPPLIER DEVELOPMENT: Consider suppliers as business partners, enhancing their long-term development, as opposed to maximizing each transaction. Promote mutual collaboration to improve flow efficiency along the supply chain.
PROMOTIONAL DEPLOYMENT: Create solid processes to deploy discounts and offers, ensuring the correct timings and compliance. Streamline both operational (material) and communication (information) flows.
AGILE DEVELOPMENT: Accelerate the design and conception processes using agile principles, and adapting the structure to new demand conditions.
PRODUCT RANGE OPTIMIZATION: Optimize product portfolio, providing the teams with adequate means for accurate decision-making.
STOCKS PULL PLANNING: Refine stock management to balance too much and too little stock.
PROMOTIONAL STRATEGY: Define a data-driven strategy for promotional activities to improve business results, aligning the local activity with the core strategy.
PRICING AND PROCUREMENT: Look for new suppliers and assess already existing ones. Negotiate contracts, including gross margin and logistics conditions. Define baseline and promotional pricing guidelines. Define markdown rules to avoid excess stock and optimize margin.
MARKET KNOWLEDGE: Investigate and select compelling scenarios for market expansion and penetration. Proceed to an accurate segmentation to adapt the communication and offer to the target personas.
STRATEGY AND POSITIONING: Define positioning in relation to competition (price, range, promotional activity, price perception…). Adjust the promotional tools and channels to the defined target groups.
CONTENT DEVELOPMENT: Understand customer thinking and raise awareness of their primary concerns. Develop challenger content for direct marketing purposes.
E-COMMERCE DESIGN: Design a customer-driven online operation, including appropriate order fulfillment strategies and core business processes.
Impact
5 to 10%
Average customer satisfaction increase
17 to 27%
Average stocks reduction
20 to 30%
Average sales increase
Want to learn the lean approach to retail?
Check out our customized training program to develop continuous improvement skills in the sector
The KAIZEN™ approach begins with an end-to-end analysis. This analysis leads to a customized solution design and implementation plan. The contribution of the teams is critical to the success of any Lean journey. We organize our customers’ teams to break functional silos and develop continuous improvement skills.
We support our clients in implementing the initiative’s plan, ensuring set objectives are met.
Ready to start?
Find out what are the key opportunities in your processes by conducting a diagnosis workshop.
Kaizen Institute’s approach is practical, pragmatic, and collaborative. We work with our customers in their Gemba – where the action takes place – and observe the opportunities first-hand.
Our experts combine deep expertise with refined analytical and problem-solving skills, bringing an external and fact-based perspective to the industry’s challenges and opportunities.
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