During the last 10 years, retail has been an industry that has had to transform rapidly. Today, technology-based innovation is key for the entire industry, and we have seen more clearly the urgency to optimize and improve the customer experience within the stores and at the same timefor the employees themselves.
Achieving the match between what the customer perceives and what happens within the operations of a store or point-of-sale has become one of the biggest challenges and main headaches for the retail industry.
In a context in which sales channels require more sophistication and agility than ever before, it is becoming more necessary than ever to achieve the ideal of “perfect execution.”
What does perfect execution mean?
A “perfect execution” is achieved with a mix of factors. The objective is that consumers get the products they want, where they want them, and that retailers offer solutions to their demands without obstacles, in an agile manner, and above all, contributing to the achievement of the goalsof each store.
According to CERET, during 2020, 29% of people were dissatisfied with products’ stock availablein department stores, and 20% were dissatisfied with retail stores’ stock. One of the causes is mainly due to the trade’s difficulties with supply due to sanitary measures.Stock is only one of the problems that stores and points of sale present, in addition to the poor traceability of available products, difficulties in inter-area communication, poor control of productson the shelves, slow management of incidents, or stock-outs, among others.
Nowadays, these problems have become strategic determinants of business success.
6 Frogmi recommendations to improve in-store and Point-of-Sale execution
- Establish work routines: Whether it’s a weekly risk prevention check, daily cleaning of people-contact areas, stocktaking, or even a simple cash register closing, work routines are the basis on which to start talking aboutin-store execution. But how do we ensure that this happens when we are not physically in the store? Implementing work routines under a cloud platform allows you to generate tracking from wherever you are, ensuring that the work is done and eliminating the need to be physically at the store to check it. At the same time, it generates tracking data and compliance by commercial areas, trade marketing, maintenance, suppliers, or any type of routine necessary to execute.
- Generate process traceability: Traceability is the ability to generate end-to-end tracking of all processes that take place on the sales floor. At this point, full traceability is only possible by implementing a technological component that supports this process. One of the most critical points that Frogmi has identified is the low tracking of events and incidents within the entire retail chain, causing delays, loss of time, and endless bottlenecks that make the process inefficient. Implementing a platform to connect stores, suppliers, and central areas is another crucial point that cannot be missing in intelligent retail.
- Establish measurement points: Another point of equal importance for a perfect execution is the establishment of compliance parameters for in-store actions. Thus, defining the KPIs under which we will measure the processes is strategic to achieve quality standards. Questions such as: How long do the actions take, how many times are they carried out, was the implementation correct, among others, are the ones that should come into action at this point.
- Being prepared for incidents: Incident management problems are something that we have identified as one of the main problems in the retail and mass consumption industry, which is becoming more and more critical every day. The traditional asset management view focuses on managing the inventory and history of the company’s physical assets, acting reactively, and providing little room for prediction.Frogmi’s objective is to achieve efficient processes by improving the operational availability of assets through rapid incident resolution. In this way, various business areas can interact in a non-linear way. Frogmi will automatically connect different internal flows within the company when an event or incident occurs, considerably improving response times.
- Connect and automate as much as possible: In line with the previous points, automation is the starting point for improving all processes in stores and POS as a whole. Therefore, Frogmi offers separate modules for each business process. Each module is specialized in its area but simultaneously can interact with the others and have the same usability nature.
A connected and automated process means identifying work and execution flows and evaluating each asset’s relevant variables to generate automated tasks or events as established by the company. - Measure results and manage based on data: Drucker’s well-known and replicated phrase “what is not measured can not be managed” is currently a motto that more companies adopt. The global technological context in which we find ourselves gives a leading position to data-driven management and decision making. We simply know that everything we do has the potential to generate insights that help us improve our business.
Based on the recommendations above, we create data when we generate work routines, traceable processes, measurement points, identify incidents, and automate. This new informationwill be the protagonist of any management decision and improvement.
At Frogmi, we know that only by measuring can we identify deviations and execute actions to improve store operations. The platform has a specific module for automated tasks, another for flow management, and one for micro-tasks. So, by integrating each action in the platform, you can see in a simple way what is happening in real-time. You can follow the evolution of incidents,measure resolution rates, monitor response times, and track incidents by assets or any parameter you define.
