Retail Project Management: 5 Mistakes You Cannot Afford eBook

Project teams are under increasing time-to-market pressure. Project managers and their teams are extremely busy. Mistakes are made on a daily basis. Even non-critical errors and

minor execution mishaps are not as innocuous as they may appear and can have

serious consequences...

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Retail Project Management: 5 Mistakes You Cannot Afford

#1 Poor Communication

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Retail Project Management: 5 Mistakes You Cannot Afford

During a site inspection, the building code specialist finds out that the new furniture is not compliant with the latest accessibility regulations for disabled customers.

You asked your marketing team to design and build a prototype of the new checkout counter for a new store concept that is being rolled out.

#1 Pr

oble

m

Poor

Com

mun

icat

ion

The production team delivered the new counters on time. The fitters have just finished installation and the counters are in place.

©One2Team 2015

26 January

19 March

Retail Project Management: 5 Mistakes You Cannot Afford

During a site inspection, the building code specialist finds out that the new furniture is not compliant with the latest accessibility regulations for disabled customers.

You asked your marketing team to design and build a prototype of the new checkout counter for a new store concept that is being rolled out.

#1 Pr

oble

m

Poor

Com

mun

icat

ion

The production team delivered the new counters on time. The fitters have just finished installation and the counters are in place.

©One2Team 2015

26 January

19 March

Retail Project Management: 5 Mistakes You Cannot Afford

Impact

Two months elapsed added to the critical path, i.e. the time it takes to

redesign the counter and start production, in addition to vendor

cost overruns. Or, in some cases, the project is postponed indefinitely, due to

budget constraints or competing priorities that require allocation of

teams to other critical projects.

#2 Lack of Visibility

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Retail Project Management: 5 Mistakes You Cannot Afford

"We actually need your approval for the furniture color. I'll schedule a meeting with you ASAP, but we are looking at a three-week delay...”

#2 Pr

oble

m

Lack

of V

isib

ility

"Don't worry, everything is fine. I'll let you know the progress on a region-by-region basis by the end of the week."

You check in with your retail manager on the status of the rollout of interactive sales kiosks, a project you approved 4 months ago.

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8 June

13 June

Retail Project Management: 5 Mistakes You Cannot Afford

"We actually need your approval for the furniture color. I'll schedule a meeting with you ASAP, but we are looking at a three-week delay...”

#2 Pr

oble

m

Lack

of V

isib

ility

"Don't worry, everything's fine. I'll let you know the progress on a region-by-region basis by the end of the week."

You check in with your retail manager o the status of the rollout of interactive sales kiosks, a project you approved 4 months ago now.

©One2Team 2015

8 June

13 June

Retail Project Management: 5 Mistakes You Cannot Afford

Impact

A3-weekdelayinrollingoutthenewinterac6vekiosksmeansthreeweekslesssales!Youwerenotuptodateaboutissuesandinsteadlearned

aboutthemtoolate,duringasitevisitorduringamonthlyprojectstatus

mee6ng.

#3 Inaccurate Forecasting

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Retail Project Management: 5 Mistakes You Cannot Afford

#3 Pr

oble

m

Inac

cura

te F

orec

astin

g Opening a flagship store on Fifth Avenue

in time for the Holidays

It is THE project of the year. The executive team’s expectations of this store launch are high. The opening marks the start of the launch of a

new concept and should validate it before a large-scale rollout.

©One2Team 2015

21 June

FrankTownsendProjectLeaderSteve,I’msorrytoinformyouthatthe5thAveflagshipwon’tbeopenforXmas.Unfortunately,somekeyelementsneedmorethan3monthstobedelivered.Wedidnotan6cipatethislead6me.WehavenoplanBrightnow.Frank

Retail Project Management: 5 Mistakes You Cannot Afford

#3 Pr

oble

m

Inac

cura

te F

orec

astin

g Opening a flagship store on Fifth Avenue

in time for the Holidays

It is THE project of the year. Executive team’s expectations of this store launch are extremely high. The opening marks the start of the launch of a new concept and should validate it before a large-scale rollout.

©One2Team 2015

21 June

FrankTownsendProjectLeaderSteve,I’msorrytoinformyouthatthe5thAveflagshipwon’tbeopenforXmas.Unfortunately,somekeyelementsneedmorethan3monthstobedelivered.Wedidnotan6cipatethislead6me.WehavenoplanBrightnow.Frank

Retail Project Management: 5 Mistakes You Cannot Afford

Impact A 3-month delay in opening a store means just as many months of sales

have been lost and potentially a major PR blunder.

#4 Lack of Synchronization

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Retail Project Management: 5 Mistakes You Cannot Afford

#4 Pr

oble

m

Lack

of S

ynch

roni

zatio

n

Peter, the contractor in charge of implementing LED displays, calls Jen, the Pasadena store manager, to tell her that they are going to install a 50-inch LED panel in her store’s window.

What a shame! Jen just followed the corporate merchandising team guidelines and got a well-known visual merchandiser to design a new window display at this busy time of the year.

The window display should be adapted to fit with the new displays, but the visual merchandiser’s contract is up.

©One2Team 2015

12 November

Retail Project Management: 5 Mistakes You Cannot Afford

#4 Pr

oble

m

Lack

of S

ynch

roni

zatio

n

Peter, the contractor in charge of implementing LED displays, calls Jen, the Pasadena store manager, to tell her that they are going to install a 50-inch LED panel in her window display.

What a shame! Jen just followed the corporate merchandising team guidelines and got a well-known visual merchandiser to design a new window display at this very busy time of the year.

The window display should be adapted to fit with the new displays, but the visual merchandiser’s contract is up.

©One2Team 2015

12 November

Retail Project Management: 5 Mistakes You Cannot Afford

Impact

The company suffers damage to its brand image because of poorly

implemented visual merchandising. Budgets are misallocated or sub-

optimally spent. All the while, store operations staff and management are

increasingly frustrated because of perceived lack of support from

corporate.

#5 Inability to Leverage Relevant Information

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Retail Project Management: 5 Mistakes You Cannot Afford

#5 Pr

oble

m

Inab

ility

to L

ever

age

Info

rmat

ion

In a couple of weeks, a new store-within-the-store area will be set up to celebrate Mother's Day. Children will be able to pick free samples off a wire-mesh display to gift to their mothers.

Here is the wire mesh we need to install for the Mother's Day promotion.

Too late. We have no time to change the design.

Oh, but I had found a cheaper vendor approved by the purchasing director!

The marketing team sends the purchasing manager the wire mesh specs to be ordered. The purchasing manager is frustrated. She has an approved vendor that can supply the material at a per-foot price $30 lower. The vendor is certified and approved by purchasing. However, it is too late now to change the design. The order must be submitted...

©One2Team 2015

Retail Project Management: 5 Mistakes You Cannot Afford

#5 Pr

oble

m

Inab

ility

to L

ever

age

Info

rmat

ion

In a couple of weeks, a new store-within-the-store area will be set up to celebrate Mother's Day. Children will be able to pick free samples off a wire-mesh display to gift to their mothers.

Here is the wire mesh we need to install for the Mother's Day promotion.

Too late. We have no time to change the design.

Oh, but I had found a cheaper vendor approved by the purchasing director!

The marketing team sends the purchasing manager the wire mesh specs to be ordered. The purchasing manager is frustrated. She has an approved vendor that can supply the material at a per-foot price $30 lower. The vendor is certified and approved by purchasing. However, it is too late now to adapt the design. The order must be submitted...

©One2Team 2015

Retail Project Management: 5 Mistakes You Cannot Afford

Impact

At $30 per linear foot, with a 30 foot display in 450 stores, that amounts to a

missed saving of over $400,000

These types of problems are endemic in many project management and operations organizations. Teams often lack a systematic approach to reduce their occurrence and mitigate their impact. These issues ultimately result in:

v  Cost overruns which affect future investment flexibility v  Lower competitiveness against competing brands v  Negative impact on employees’ and suppliers' morale

Fast and precise execution demands that retailers strike the right balance between speed and risk management. That needs not be an impossible task, given that there are ways of being quick and agile AND well organized at the same time. In a survey of the 100 largest European retailers that we recently published, we found that:

©One2Team 2015

81% Believe that a real-time

management tool would be effective

Believe that a tool shared by all shareholders

would fix most problems

77%

Retail Project Management: 5 Mistakes You Cannot Afford

One2Team is the cloud project and collaboration solution designed for the multi-site retail and restaurant industry. With 20,000 users in 50 countries and $130 billion in project budgets managed, One2Team is the end-2-end solution for retail, restaurant and merchandising deployment planning and execution. One2Team helps organizations achieve real-time, unified visibility of project progress, anticipate problems before they occur, accelerate growth initiatives and increase profit margins. Companies using One2Team:

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20,000 users

50 countries

$130 bn in project budgets managed

Find out how One2Team enabled Monoprix to roll out its new brand and identity in record time with just two employees

Retail Project Management: 5 Mistakes You Cannot Afford

One2Team Inc. 55 New Montgomery Street

San Francisco, CA 94105

contact_us@one2team.com www.one2team.com

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Retail Project Management: 5 Mistakes You Cannot Afford