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Research Papers

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2011

		The 21st Century Store Manager Recent RSR studies have highlighted the fact that an educated and empowered store manager is the single most important human asset to have out on the sales floor. The role has changed from managing costs (and specifically, labor) to managing customer satisfaction. Retailers are concerned about too much time being spent off the floor in the backroom, and see process metrics and actionable information delivered via new technologies as a way to enable store managers to continue to manage their store’s people, merchandise, and profitability while also acting as Brand Ambassadors to enhance the customer shopping experience.

		How to Get Executive Approval for Workforce Management Solutions Store operations executives often have a hard time getting approval from their executive leadership to implement workforce management software. Here’s an article written by an operations director for a major retailer describing the 5 key steps and 4 secrets of success to gaining approval for a workforce management implementation.

		Top Four Retail Workforce Management Trends of 2010 Integrated workforce/task management solutions, cloud computing, mobility, and new user interfaces were the top four trends in retail workforce management in 2010.

2010

		Retail Horror Stories and Why Workforce Management Matters Many store-level employees feel that C-level retail executives have no clue about the scary things that go on in the day to day operations of their stores. But C-level executives should know, because what is happening - or not happening - is hurting their company's brand and profitability. Here's what goes on, and how retailers can fix the problems.

		How to Drive Retail Operations Excellence Mid-sized and large retailers have become quite proficient at implementing point solutions that improve operational efficiencies in specific disciplines. Function-specific managers in any of several departments typically champion these projects - merchandising implements a planogramming application; marketing builds an ad campaign management tool; LP introduces a point specific vendor compliance initiative; the supply chain group implements RFID in hopes of gaining inventory visibility and combating out-of-stocks. Meanwhile, store operations personnel attempt to orchestrate the store-level execution of these (and more) initiatives.

		RSR Research: The Customer-Centric Store 2010 In 2010, customers have the right to expect more from stores than most currently provide. Every step that strengthens the online experience only further relegates the store to being the weak link in the multi-channel chain. Yet all is not lost: stores hold an endearing place in customers' hearts - after all, people love to shop, and visiting a store is still the essence of that experience - stores just need a little help returning to their pre-Web favor.

		The State of the Store Manager 2010 A recent survey of more than 100 store managers conducted by a retail trade magazine reveals some telling reasons why retailers so often struggle to execute their strategy consistently in their stores. It also brings up the question of why retailers spend so much money on software to help plan their advertising, merchandising, promotions, and new product strategies but then expect their store managers and associates to do their jobs using woefully obsolete technology.

		Optimizing Workforce Performance Management To succeed in today's customer-centric environment, retailers must bridge the gaps among their workforce performance applications. A recent report in an RIS News "Thought Leadership" series indicates that although the majority of retailers consider optimized scheduling to be "Very Valuable," only 50% have implemented an integrated labor scheduling/task management solution. As the article indicates, only an integrated Retail Execution Platform enables you to align store labor and activities with retail strategy and ensure all the work that needs to be done is completed as intended.

		Break Down the Barriers to Retail Operations Excellence A former VP of store operations at the third largest supermarket chain in the U.S. discusses how retailers can break down the barriers to cross- functional collaboration and drive operations excellence in four important retail processes: new item introductions, promotions, price changes, and product recalls.

		Cross-Functional Collaboration: How Retailers Can Uncover Hidden Profit A former VP at the third largest supermarket chain in the U.S. discusses how the lack of cross-functional collaboration in retail enterprises causes inefficiency and a suboptimal customer store experience, and how a billion dollar retailer can uncover millions in hidden profit.

2009

		Solve the Retail Workforce Management and Execution Challenge A former VP at the third largest supermarket chain in the U.S. discusses the technology retailers can now implement to overcome their store operations challenges. Also, how retailers can reduce the margin of execution error in their stores and drive improvement in all metrics by which they measure store operations, including sales, labor costs, and task execution and workforce compliance rates.

2008

		RSR Research: Retail Execution Management Drives the Customer Centric Store Consistent store execution is consistently cited by retailers as one of the major challenges they face in improving the customer experience. The simple reality is, retailers must find a way to service their customers more efficiently.

		How to Achieve Consistent Store-Level Execution in Retailing and Drive Increased Sales Successful store-level execution of new product launches, promotions, and other initiatives enables retailers to recover the revenue they would otherwise lose due to suboptimal performance.

		21 Weeks or Bust Retail enterprise implementations in 21 weeks or less? Believe it. Here's the Reflexis playbook for CIOs: Why store managers and associates are the equivalent of the Offensive Line in American football.

AMR Research: Bridging the Merchandising and Store Operations Divide

This report identifies the root causes and determines potential remedies for translating merchandising and promotional strategies into flawless execution. With 85% of buying decisions made at the shelf, retailers need perfect execution to claim their piece of the $4T in annual retail industry revenue projections.

2007

		How Retail Execution Management Solutions Solve the "Last Mile" Problem Task management combined with other workforce optimization solutions enables retailers to improve productivity and provide a consistently positive consumer experience that drives increased sales.

		Workforce Optimization: Boosting Store-Level Productivity & Top-Line Performance Workforce management is important to all retailers, regardless of size, segment, or business model. The reasons are twofold: most important, the fulfillment of a brick and mortar retailer's brand promise almost always comes down to the interaction between an employee and a customer. Second, as a retailer's largest controllable expense, the in-store workforce is a perennial target for productivity and efficiency improvements.

		Retail Store Execution - An Empirical Study The paper describes a methodology by which a retailer can identify action steps that are likely to increase sales and customer satisfaction and demonstrates the methodology using proprietary data from a large retailer with over 500 stores. Results suggest that a modest reallocation of the payroll budget among stores could be expected to yield a 2-3% increase in sales with no increase in cost.

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