Productivity Parameters

Productivity Parameters- for tracking productivity and efficiency

Because of the rise in property value and increase cost of lease and rent analysing the productivity of space employed is of utmost importance to all retailers in India. The best way is to use sales/sq. ft/month (or day). Since most retailers pay a monthly rent. This measure when considered along with the rent/sq. ft/month gives actual productivity of the space.

For example:

At a particular store if
Sales=A= 3,112869
Area = B= 5000 sq ft
Then the sales per sq.ft.= C= A/B = 3112869/5000 = 622.57

And per day sales= D= C/30 = 622.57/30 = 20.75

To measure the productivity of staffs;
Assume there are five staffs, then

Sales/staff/month = 3112869/5
= 622574
And per day = 622574/30 = 20752.46


Efficiency is ratio of effective output to inputs. If we consider net sales as output then the effective output is the gross margin earned in amount. Using the above example returns/sq ft and returns/staff can be considered as the corresponding efficiency measures for the productivity measures of sales/sq.ft and sales/staff.

So,
Sales = A = 3112869
Gross margin % = B= 45%
Gross margin = C= A*B= 1400791
Area= D= 5000 sq ft
Then returns/sq ft/month = E= C/D = 1400791/5000= 280.15
And returns/sqft/day = F= C/D/30 = 9.33

Customer satisfaction:
The shopping culture in India is completely different compared to China, Brazil and rest of the emerging nations in retail. Here customers mostly shop with families and buy mostly during festival seasons and during weddings. Competition in the retail market is also rising and due to this retailers have understood the importance of customer service and providing customer satisfaction, which again is an output apart from sales for a retail outlet. Retailers have started treating this parameter very seriously and hence to improve productivity and efficiency on customer satisfaction various activities like Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Customer Feedback Programmes have been developed to measure the satisfaction levels of customers.

It is not very easy to measure and quantify the effective output when it comes to customer satisfaction as the same varies from customer to customer and means different to different customers.


It’s very important for retailers to be updated about the market trends. They need to stock merchandise that is in-fashion and excites customers. Retailers get their profits from the margins that the suppliers provide them. These margins get realized when the merchandise gets sold in the market. No two merchandise category is the same, thus the returns expected from each category is different.
The three resources, space, finance and labor are limited and they need to be utilized in a manner, which leads to highest returns for the organization. In order to measure the productivity of these resources some standard measures have been devised. They are:
Gross Margin Return on Inventory Investment-GMROI for finances
Gross Margin Return on Footage-GMROF for space utilization
Gross Margin Return on Labour-GMROL for labor productivity

GMROI
To a retailer the merchandise is the most important aspect in his business. The profitability of the business is dependent on the productivity of merchandise sourcing and finally its sale in the store. A large part of investment of a retailer is in the form of inventory at the stores and warehouse. Under these conditions, it becomes important for a retailer to measure and track the productivity of the inventory investment.
The returns on inventory investments are mostly received in the form of margins.
There are two parts to GMROI, gross margin and the inventory levels attached to the product.

Gross margin % = Gross margin / Net sales

The inventory levels attached to a product can be calculated in the form of a ratio:

Sales to stock ratio = Net sales / Average inventory at cost

A combination of gross margin % and sales to stock ratio will give us the GMROI

GMROI = Gross margin / Net sales * Net sales / Average inventory at cost

i.e. GMROI = Gross margin / average inventory at cost

Inventory turnover is a more popular way to measure the inventory levels. The difference between sales to stock ratio and inventory turnover lies in the fact that a sale to stock ratio captures average inventory levels at cost, while inventory turnover includes average inventory at retail. Thus inventory turnover can be calculated as:
Inventory turnover = Net sales / Average inventory at retail price

Since the investment in inventory is only to the extent of the cost of merchandise, the stock levels must be taken at cost and not at retail price. Hence the average inventory value needs to be taken at cost.

Though GMROI gives an idea about the combined performance of GM% and inventory turnover, one can always argue that why don’t we look at these two separately. Is there actually a need to combine the two?

To understand this we will take an example.
Take two categories, vegetables and apparels where vegetables give 15% gross margin while apparels give 40% gross margin. A look at % will tell us that apparels are more profitable. Since percentage can be deceptive let us look at gross margin. On a sale of 150 lacs, vegetables will give a gross margin of 22.50 lacs while on a sale of 350 lacs in apparels it will give a gross margin of 140 lacs. Hence gross margin also shows apparels is more profitable.

Let’s look at the inventory levels for both the categories. If vegetables need a stock level of 2 lacs at cost and have a sale to stock ratio of 87.5 while apparels need a stock level of 50 lacs at cost and have a sale to stock ratio of 6 only then -
GMROI for vegetables = 22.50 / 150 * 150 / 2 = 11.25x or (1125%)

GMROI for apparels = 140 / 350 * 350 / 50 = 2.80x or (280%)

Hence, even though the margin % for vegetables is very less, the category is more productive as far as GMROI is concerned. Hence GMROI is a much better measure to evaluate inventory productivity than inventory turnover or gross margins alone.

Vegetables do not look profitable if only gross margins are considered, and apparels do not look profitable if inventory turnover is considered as it needs more inventory investment than vegetables. A composite of these two GMROI gives us a better picture that vegetables actually give higher returns than apparels.

Sales to stock ratio for apparels is 6 and for vegetables it is 87.5
So the inventory turnover for vegetables can be calculated as
87.5*(100%-15%) = 87.5* 85% = 74.38
And inventory turnover for apparels is
6*(100%-40%) = 6*60% = 3.6

GMROF
It is a measure of gross margin returns on the space occupied by a particular category. GMROF gives an idea about the productivity of space for a category or for an entire store. It helps a lot during space management and placement of goods of particular categories during store layout changes or during a set-up of anew store.

GMROF = Gross margin (Rs.) / Selling space (sq.ft.)

Average inventory at cost / Selling space (sq.ft.) = Inventory intensity which means how much inventory investment is needed per square feet of selling space. It varies across categories.

So, GMROF = GMROI * Inventory intensity

Calculating GMROF is important for a retailer because GMROI gives an idea of only returns on inventory and does not take space required to display stock into consideration. Utilization of space should be managed very efficiently for more profitability as space also comes at a cost.
GMROI is more a measure of profitability while GMROF is a measure of productivity.




To see how GMROI on its own is misleading lets continue with the same example.
Vegetables had a GMROI of 11.25x and Apparel had a GMROI of 2.80x. From GMROI point of view Vegetables look profitable than Apparel. Space however required is 200 sq.ft. for vegetables and 600 sq.ft. for apparels.

Hence inventory intensity for vegetable = 2, 00,000 / 200 = 1,000
And inventory intensity for apparels = 50, 00,000 / 600 = 8,333

Inventory intensity is higher for apparels because the average sale price of a single keeping unit (SKU) of apparels is higher than that of vegetables.

Now,
GMROF for vegetables = 1,000 * 11.25 = 11,250 (Rs./sq.ft.)
GMROF for apparels = 8,333 * 2.80 = 23,332.4 (Rs./sq.ft.)

Hence, even though vegetables have a higher GMROI than apparels it is less productive because apparel has higher GMROF. In other words, apparel is more space productive than vegetables and thus compensates for lower GMROI.

All SKU’s can’t be expected to have high space productivity. There can be few SKU’s that yield less GMROI and GMROF. But one cannot avoid these SKU’s in the store as they are helpful in driving customers into the store. A category like vegetables offers low GMROF, but still needs to be present within a store as it pulls traffic into the store, in supermarkets. Hence a retailer needs to plan his merchandise mix within categories in such a way that the overall profitabitlity of the store is not affected.

Another way of measuring the space productivity is

Net sales / Selling space (sq.ft.)

GMROL
The frontline team management staffs in a store have complete control over the number of people employed at the store level.

GMROL = Gross margin / FTE Employees

Where FTE stands for Full Time Equivalent

Since retail has lot of manpower, which is working on part time basis with the industry we need to calculate the full time equivalent for these employees.

FTE employees = E1*H1*D1 + E2*H2*D2 + E3*H3*D3 + ……
Hours in regular shift * No.of working days in a week

E = Employees
H = Hours worked
D = Days worked

For eg:
If there are 200 employees in a store, out of which 100 do a eight hour shift and 50 do a four hour shift in a day and the rest 50 work for 3 days in a week for eight hours per day and suppose the employees work for six days in a week, then

FTE employees = 100*8*6 + 50*4*6 + 58*8*3 = 7200 / 48 = 150
8*6
Thus, though the store has 200 employees, the FTE employees is only 150

Note: OT is not to be included while calculating FTE

Labour productivity can also be measured as:
Service intensity = Selling feet / FTE employees

Employee productivity can be measured as:
Sales per employee = Net sales / FTE employees

However this does not consider the profitability of a category

Selling Skills- Part II

Operational Parameters-Store Performing Indicators
Operational parameters consist of Customer Entry, Conversion, Ticket Size, Value per piece and Quantity per bill. Through these parameters we can understand the performance of a store, and can easily analyze the real reasons for a store’s performance.

Customer entry:
It is the number of customers who enter the store during trading hours irrelevant of whether they are purchasing a product or not. They can either be a new customer, or an existing customer.
Customers get attracted towards a store due to its location, its ambience, the products that they sell, and also due to attractive prices that they offer. Fall in customer entry is seen if any of these factors are not present.
Festive seasons, geographical changes and climatic and weather changes like heavy rains during monsoon, and economic and political situations also impact the flow in customer entry.


Conversion:
It’s a measure to identify how many of the customers who have walked into the store has purchased something from the store.
Conversion is a result of effective selling skills a sales staff possesses, good collection and availability of merchandise and good price offered.

Conversion % = No. of bills / Customer entry * 100

Ticket size or cash memo size:
Ticket size is nothing but the average number of money each buyer has spent inside the store in one visit. More variety of merchandise, right choice of merchandise, and availability of sizes will increase the ticket size of the store. Selling higher valued products by the sales staff will also help increase the ticket size.

Ticket size = Total sales / No. of bills


Average number of pieces per bill:
It indicates the number of pieces a customer is buying from a store. The more the number of pieces sold the more the sale. Hence it becomes very important for a sales staff to display more impulse products, and sell more add-ons to a product. It also indicates the more time spent by a customer inside a store.

Average number of pieces per bill = Total no. of pieces sold/No. of bills

Value per piece:
It is an indicator of the type of merchandise available in the store. Lifestyle format stores like Shopper’s Stop, Provogue, Marks & Spencer, etc. will have a higher value per piece while all value format stores like Big Bazaar, Vishal Megamart will have a lower value per piece.
If the average value per piece in a store is falling it indicates either the store is selling lower priced products only or higher value product is not selling, or there is no stocks of higher value products on the floor. Hence sales staffs need to convert higher value products into sale and increase the overall sale of the store.

Value per piece = Total sales value / Total number of pieces sold


How to improve operational parameters:
Efficient marketing
Improved merchandise plan
Staff motivation
Staff training
Better infrastructure

Attracting customers to a store is the prime goal of a retailer. For the same to be accomplished one has to get involved into lot of marketing activities, outside the store as well as inside the store premises. As competition is rising the retailers try various methods to attract the customers towards them. The outdoor activities that is done by the marketing team helps a store to get customers, but what is more essential for the store management is to make sure the customers stay within the store premises, and do the shopping. For the same the store management needs to come up with various in-store activites to make it very exciting for the customers to shop in their stores. To increase conversions, ticket size and other the other parameters one has to design various schemes, offers, and in-store activities shop-n-dine offer, kids day out, price challenge and so on.


Do You Know….
It was a Sunday and there was a huge flow of customers. The walk-ins for the day were 2835.The total sale for the day is 2873546.The number of bills generated were 853 and number of quantities of goods sold were 1783.Analyse the performance of the store w.r.t the store parameter.
The next day the customer entry was only 657.Business for the day was only 153832.The number of customers who purchased were only 173.Only 323 pieces of goods were sold. How was the performance of the store the next day? Was it better?



Case-lets 1-2

1. It was a weekend and the customer entry for the day was 1950. The number of bills generated was 783.the total pieces sold were 1789 and hence average number of pieces per bill was 2.28. The average value per piece is 450. Calculate the average cash memo size and the conversion for the day.


2. The sale for the day was 5.83 lacs. The customer entry was 2853. the conversion was 62% . Calculate the average number of pieces per cash memo if the average value per piece is 250.

Selling Skills- Part I

Sujith was looking at the DSR and analyzing the sales for the previous day. He was not happy with the sales.
The manager had noticed that customer flow the previous day was phenomenal. Stocks on the floor were also adequate, then why sales had not happened. He called all his supervisors and wanted an answer for the same
He wanted to analyze the store-performing indicator one by one with the supervisors.

Ramesh was not happy with his department’s sale. He and his team were putting full effort but still they were not getting good results. To understand the reason Sujith asked Ramesh for the percentage of conversion of customers in his section? Ramesh had no clue.

To understand in more detail Sujith went through the Men’s department to check what all merchandise was sold the previous day. He noticed that most of the stocks from the new arrivals had not sold. Only those stocks put up on offer had sold well.

The staffs from the section also told that they sold many products throughout the day and not left even one customer empty handed. Hearing this he asked Ramesh what was the average value per piece in his section. He could not answer.

Sujith finally understood the problem. He noticed that his staffs were selling but without properly understanding the store performance indicators.


In India today most of the retail stores operate in a very unsystematic way, and are not at all process driven. The managers inside the store will be mostly in a reactive mode and seen mostly facilitating the operations rather than managing the operations. These managers are also not aware about the performance of their stores simply because they do not have or are not aware of any tools to measure the store performance. In worst scenarios they are not aware of what they are supposed to measure, how to measure and how these measures are important in the day to day activities of the store and how it affects the business directly.
Every operational activity requires inputs which results into favourable outputs. In retailing these inputs are stores, staffs and stocks which are transferred into sales and satisfaction which are the outputs. Most of the retailers in India work on this concept but to manage and measure the efficiency, productivity and profitability one more very critical input is required and that is the input of systems and processes.
It is a very crucial input which should not be ignored at any cost. Most of the retailers are not aware of this input and hence because of this not ina position to really understand
Let us understand how to measure productivity, efficiency, sales, and satisfaction levels with the help of these indicators and why they are of utmost importance.

Store Performance Indicators: tracker for measuring sales
1. Customer entry
2. Conversion (%)
3. Average Value of Bill (Cash Memo Size)
4. Average No. of Pieces. Per Bill
5. Average Value per Piece

Target Setting- from my book

Based on the ABP the store managers are supposed to set the targets for the store and his team.
Targets are mostly set by looking into previous year’s performance. If it’s a new store then targets are set based on market analysis.
Once the manager receives his ABP for the store the he breaks the target, quarterly wise, then month wise and then week wise and day wise. During setting up of the target quarterly wise he will also take seasons into consideration wherein he will set high targets during the festival seasons and during sale period. For week day and daily targets also he will set high targets for week ends and during all public holidays. He also needs to ensure that the stocks in the specific department is sufficient enough and will be available during the course before setting the target, else needs to ensure through his team to make sure the stocks are ordered regularly to achieve a set target.Based on the day to day performance of the store the manager has full authority to change his targets so as he can achieve his ABP (which will remain static) at the end of the year.
The store manager further distributes his target by breaking it department wise and gives the monthly target to his department in charge. The department managers further breaks the target section wise, product wise, day wise and further down to per staff wise.
For example:
If we consider the following:
· This is the first year of business
· End of season sale starts in the mid week of October and ends in the mid week of November and Diwali season is in last week of November:
· Men’s department has three sections namely mens formal, mens casual and mens accessories
· The casuals section is bigger than formals section.
Now let us take Mens category target for the month of October as Rs.150000/- and November as Rs. 275000/- .

Now if we consider four weeks in month of October and November then the targets should be divided as follows:
October month
1st week Rs. 25000/-
2nd week Rs. 25000/-
3rd week Rs. 55000/- as end of sales begin
4th week 45000 second week usually sales drop compared to first week of sale period

November month
1st week Rs. 55000/- as beginningof the month,sale period as well as festive season is approaching
2nd week Rs. 75000/- as it is the last week of sale
3rd week Rs. 50000/- business still will be high as new products will be launched for festive season
4th week Rs. 100000/- as it is the Diwali season and huge business is expected during this period.

Now as there are three sections in this department wherein casuals section is the biggest area wise and stock wise and accessories section is the smallest then the targets will be further divided as:

For 1st week of October
Casuals section target is Rs. 12000/- as the section is bigger compared to the rest
Formals section target is Rs. 8000/- and
Accessories section target is Rs. 5000/- as it being the smallest section. (Note: assuming average value of product in this section does not exceed that of other two sections.)

Accordingly the target is set for rest of the weeks.

Now lets us set target for individual staffs.
Assuming there are fifteen staffs in the mens department wherein:
Casuals section has seven staffs
Formals section has five staffs and
Accessories section has three staffs

Then the target per staff in casuals section for the first week in the month of October will be
12000 / 7 = Rs. 1715/-.

Target per staff in formals section for the first week in the month of October will be
8000 / 5 = Rs. 1600/-

And target per staff in accessories section for the first week in the month of October will be
5000 / 3 = Rs. 1700/-


So every staff has to sell merchandise worth around Rs.1700/- per week to achieve target of Rs. 25000/- in the first week of October

Now let us make this simpler.
In the first week of October each day per staff in the casuals department will have to sell stocks worth-
1715 / 7 = Rs. 245 /-

In similar way the targets can be distributed for every individual staffs in the store.

This shows how easy it becomes for a manager to give his frontline individual staffs per day target rather than inform him the entire months target as this becomes easy for a sales staff to achieve his target. It also becomes easier for the manager to track the sales staff’s daily sales performance.

To make it simpler the manager can further break this figure of Rs.245/- by giving quantity target of the products to be sold.
For example if the store sells
Product A Rs. 75/-
Product B Rs. 99/-
Product C Rs. 125/-

Then quantity target for product A is 4 pcs.
OR
Quantity target for product B is 3 pcs.
OR
Quantity target for product C is 2 pcs.

Such a break of target is very focus oriented and helps a staff very easily and comfortable to sell his products keeping the target in mind.

While setting targets the manager should set high targets on week ends, public holidays and on festive seasons and during promotions or seasonal sales so as to able to cover up back logs. Based on last years performance and the previous weeks performance for the year the target needs to be set accordingly. Motive should be to break the previous year’s performance so as to show growth in business for the store. Based on the performance of the store the manager can and is in a position to put up schemes/offer and sale within the store so as to achieve his ABP for the year.

Roster Management

Job scheduling and Roster Management
In the retail industry the store operationally functions for around twelve to fifteen hours daily. Due to this it becomes very important for the management to schedule shifts for the employees to work. Mostly the stores work in two shifts per day and some also have night shifts functioning. It’s a task for the management to prepare a very efficient and effective schedule at store level for the employees. Preparing a roster requires lot of planning and understanding of the store operations and functions and roles of the employees. Different processes and systems are used by various organizations to prepare a roster but the ultimate aim is to set up an efficient roster, which will smooth the operations of a store. An efficient roster contributes equally for better sales of a store.

Features and benefits of a roster:
A roster helps the department manager/floor manager to view the entire store activity department wise, and section wise.It helps to track staff strength, shifts of employees for a specific period, weekly or monthly, in one sheet, or screen itself.It helps to track and check the break-time (tea, lunch, etc.) of individual employees. It helps employees to keep a track of their shifts, and duty timings. It helps the HR personal to keep a track of leaves (weekly-offs, compensatory-offs, etc.)It helps the manager to understand the staff strength or coverage in a particular department or section. It helps during audit process also It is a very informative tool It improves and helps work life balance
It helps managers during change of shifts, handover process as at one glance can understand the schedule. It helps managers to track efficiency of his employees
It helps in investigating incident reports.


An effective roster makes best use of available time and helps improving the efficiency of a store.

How to prepare a roster:

Usually a roster is prepared depending on the size of the store. If it’s a small size store, say around ten thousand square feet then a single roster for the entire store is prepared. For large sized stores the roster is prepared department wise. Every department manager is then held responsible to prepare the roster for his department.
Consider ones need to prepare a roster for a small store having men’s wear, ladies wear and kids wear collections. Before preparing a roster it is very essential to prepare the job schedule for all the staffs within the store. The manager needs to list down the entire job that is expected to be done on a daily basis, the time required to complete the task, and also the number of staffs required to complete a task. This activity is very critical for a store manager to run the store operations very effectively and of course for better customer service. In most of the stores because this activity is not performed seriously one experiences lot of problems inside the store, for instance, absence of a sales assistant in the section to assist a customer, some cash counters closed during peak time, stocks not merchandised properly in the department, or inefficient in performing a task.
A proper job schedule if prepared efficiently by the store manager will help the all the staffs to understand their job and be focussed, save time for the managers to explain the job to the staffs on a daily basis, increase efficiency of the store resulting in better productivity of the store.
Based on the job schedule prepared a roster is made. The roster is usually made weekly basis or monthly depending on the size of the store, the job schedule and also on requirement of the job. While preparing a roster the manager needs to note the week-day activities and week-end activities separately as the walk-ins to the store varies during these two periods. Based on the walk-ins, and the events inside the store, a roster is made, so as to make sure that proper manning and staff coverage is maintained in the departments and sections. Hence one will have to ensure that maximum staffs are deployed on week-ends and public holidays and on sale period as customer flow is more during these time. As the job schedule will vary for the morning shift and evening shift the staff shift will also vary. Accordingly the roster needs to be prepared keeping in mind the time, shift and job-roles of the staffs. Lady employees are mostly called for the first shift due to security reasons; hence the job schedule is also prepared keeping this factor in mind.
The roster needs to be prepared two to three days before the week begins so as all the staffs are prepared for it accordingly. It also gives time for the manager in case some changes need to be done at the last moment due to non-availability of staffs, or if one wishes to change the shift time, or weekly offs on request.
It is the responsibility of the manager to ensure that all staffs follow the roster strictly and adhere to it as the entire store operational activities are functioned based on the roster.

Pls click the link below to see a sample roster template.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AlFo_xBgJvjMdEI4Skh1eElMSm5fME1Ha1FpZFYxcUE&hl=en

FROM MY BOOK- MY JOURNEY THROUGH RETAILING

The BIG DAY 2004-05 Success Story:
My main goal for this store was to do a sale of ten lakhs in a day (average sales per week was 11-12 lacs.) apart from achieveing the ABP for the year. I had targeted one of the Sundays, the 7th of November 2004, which falls just before Diwali- the festival of lights. This day is the most crucial day in a retailer’s life here in India as maximum business is done on this specific day throughout the year. During the staff meeting when I informed the staffs about this target of achieving ten lakhs figure, I noticed that the staffs felt that such a feat was imposibble. Vinod got up and said, “We need to be a bit more practical in setting targets, sir. How is it possible to achieve this? Our previous best during the EOSS was seven lakhs, and it was achieved because the entire store was on sale.” To this I told him we will have to plan in detail our store inventory, selling skills, store layout and merchandising plan. Vishal immediately said, “We will have to come up with some good schemes as well.” Vishal was very good at ground work activities related to marketing. When I told the team that I have a plan the team agreed to the target that we had set for ourselves.
Beginning from that day we concentrated on only how do we go about in achieving our goal? Vinod and Vishal was given the job of planning the stocks, as to first identify in their sections where there is a need of stocks, whether all the sizes are available and if they are not running out of the core essential products. A detail scanning of the sections were done by the individual teams. Once this was done the team was briefed on identifying all excess stocks to be sent back to the warehouse so as to make place for options of merchandise in the departments. Vinay was assigned to inward all new stocks coming to the store and to make sure nothing remains pending. He was also responsible to make sure that all the stocks from the warehouse is taken to the shop floor. We had planned two major offers for the event. As there was a huge hype on the release of the famous Hindi movie “Veer Zara” on the same day we decided to give away tickets for two for each and everyone who purchases goods worth Rs. 5000/- and above. The other offer was “Shop-n-Dine” lucky draw offer. The winner gets an invitation for two to dine at the adjacent five star hotel. To create hype, two weeks before the big day we had created local ads through “pamphlets distribution”, which mentioned “Pantaloons Big Day Coming Soon…..” along with the offers running in the store. We had also arranged to put “string tags” with the words “Pantaloons Big Day Coming Soon” mentioned on them on all the bikes at the parking lot. The staffs also put stickers on their individual bikes to promote the event. For areas at considerable distance from the store we had a special pamphlet made which had a special offer saying “Get This Along To Avail Your Auto Fare Back”. Every individual staff slowly began to realize the importance of the big day and contributed willingly to achieve the goal.
The entire week before Diwali noticed tremendous footfalls inside the store. The entire team were all set to achieve the set target. Just a day before the D-day I received a call in the evening around 4pm. from Sadashiv.
“Hi, Chinmay, I hope your team is all set for tomorrow.”
“Yes Sir.”
“ Ved wants to speak to you”
“Ok”
“Hi, Chinmay, hope you all are geared up for the Big Day. What is the plan?”
“Sir, we will be opening the shop at 9am. All the staffs will be present for the full shift. We have also set some special offers for the day. No problem with stocks.”
“OK, wonderful, all the best”
I could here some sounds from behind as the line got disconnected.
That was Ved. He made sure to call up each and every store managers all over the country to wish them good luck. It was really very motivating. Of course, it paid off really well.
On the D- day since early morning itself there was good number of walk-ins. Due to the campaign that we did since past two weeks to the Big Day we received tremendous response. We had planned to keep one staff at the main entrance as the “Greeter”. He was only concentrating in welcoming customers and also speaking to the one that left the store without buying anything and thereby converting the non-buyers into buyers. It was very difficult for the staffs to attend to customers because of the rush inside the store. I made sure that all the staffs were continuously arranging the merchandise and also replenishing the stocks from the warehouse. I had also put in extra force of housekeeping staffs to help the staffs in every section to manage the merchandise on the fixtures. Every hour was very crucial for all of us. I was keepins track of the score and updating my DM’s. Reshma, the HR for the store had arranged for snacks, and food for all the employees. Glucose was also arranged for the staffs. The cashiers were busy since morning. They had done a tremendous job on that day. Around afternoon time the walk-ins got reduced. I got worried as I did not want the billing process to get slow, as it is the only sign which tells one how the business is performing. A continuous billing process ensures good sales. But gradually in the evening the crowd again started pouring in. By this time the store was a complete mess.Most of the merchandise were on the floor. The fixtures on the walls were almost empty. But still the customers were busy seen searching for their sizes from the piles of stocks lying on the shop floor. It was actually very interesting and exciting to watch this. This itself showed the immense pleasure the customers were experiencing while shopping on the shop floor. We had touched almost two lakhs in the first half, and expected to do another two lakhs in the afternoon session. But by five in the evening we had touched around three lakhs only. I knew we were lagging way behind, because of the drop in walk-ins in the afternoon. In the second half we had to target for another seven lakhs, which I was confident about as the walk-ins used to double after around 5pm in the evening. After around three hours we could add up only another one lakh or so. I wondered why, as there were still many customers on the floor. The billing process had reduced. On the floor I noticed that the cash counters were a bit empty. But the customers were all carrying baskets full of merchandise on the shop floor. My estimation told me that we can get another three to four lakhs by the time we close for the day.
We closed the store for trading at around 12: 30 after midnight. We had done a sale of 6.20 lakhs on that day. The next day we opened the store one hour late, so as we could set up the entire store. Everyone of us were very tired. Suddenly I received a call from Sadashiv.
“Good, job, and a nice show.”
“I am not happy sir, we did not achieve the target”.
“Don’t say that, it was a wonderful team work. We at the HO had set a target of 8 lakhs for your store, which itself was on a higher end. Achieving this figure and that too on a full margin, a day when the store is not on sale period is an achievement by itself. The entire HO team is happy with the performance.”
“But still I would want to set this target and achieve it very soon.”
“Its ok, in Mumbai the other Pantaloon outlets also did not achieve the set target, but everyone performed well as per expectations. Overall we have still achieved the target for the Zone. Fine then, I shall get back to you later.
“Thank you Sir, and congrats to you also.”
I immediately called up a meeting of the staffs and congratulated them on their wonderful performance. While everyone of them were a bit upset on not achieving the target I informed them that the team at the HO are very proud of them, and conveyed Sadashiv’s message to them. I then informed the team not to lose hope, as now I am more confident of achieving the set target at a later date as we have learnt a lot from this Big Day. I asked them as to whether they are ready to take up the challenge and keep the target open. They all said a big “yes”, more confidently and added that they will ensure they achieve it. By now I noticed that compared to the day I discussed about my goal of achieving the target and today I noticed confidence and a ray of hope in every individual staff. Every one were very eager to put in their best to achieve this goal.

End-of-Season sale for the winter session was nearing and I reminded all the staffs about our target. We decided to go for it on the last day of the sale which falls on a Sunday. As the EOSS was for an entire month we had three Sundays to rehearse for the Big day. We worked on all the plans and made sure to rectify on all the hurdles that we had faced during our previous big day.Everything was planned in the same way as it was on the previous big day. The only advantage we had this time on our side were the sales offers. On the first Sunday we got a tremendous response. We broke an all=time record with a sale of eight lakhs plus. This achievement of ours really boosted our energy level and confidence. I immediately called up Ved and Sadashiv. Both of them complimented me and my team for this feat. The second Sunday the sales were a bit low but it was more than seven lakhs. On the third Sunday we crossed our previous best record. We were sure we would be able to achieve our goal this time at any cost. The store used to be open till midnight on week-ends. We made sure all the stocks were available, offers properly updated in the system, and the sections properly managed by staffs. On the fourth Sunday, that is the last day of sale we had a huge number of walk-ins to the store. It was so crowded that we literally had to take the mall securities help to manage the crowd. The mall had never experienced such a crowd earlier. The General Manager and the Marketing Head of the mall personally came to the store to meet me and congratulate me on the success of getting such huge walk-ins to the store. I was very thrilled by this over whelming response. All the staffs were completely energized and excited. We all knew it is today or never, to achieve our set goal. Every individual staff made sure that all customers carry a basket for shopping, and do not leave the store empty handed. As before I was regularly updating my DM’s on the score. This time we had already crossed five lakhs in the first half. Around 9pm in the evening we had done nine lakhs. By this time the crowd had reduced. I was worried as we had another one lakh to go. We were all very tensed and at the same time confident of achieving it. I could see some of the lady staffs, with folded hands, praying in their section. Such was the devotion and passion among the staffs. It was like as if this moment belonged to them. I could easily notice the ownership that they carried along with them during this period. By ten o’clock we had reached 9.5 lacs. There were hardly twenty to thirty customers. Around this time we noticed a family of around six to seven members enter the store. They were all buying stuffs from each and every section. We came to know that they were not from Pune, and had come from the state of Gujarat. Vishal assisted them in their purchase. They ended up buying for around 15 to 20 thousand rupees. We all were so thrilled because we knew we had made it. By around 12: 30 we had clocked the figure of ten lacs. We all jumped around like kids, shouting and cheering each other, and congratulating one another. To make sure we crossed the magic figure I went and checked the score once again. The sales were over 10 lacs for the day, and I told myself, “We have done it”
Next day early in the morning I got a call from Sadashiv.
“What magic did you do? Great job!!!! Excellent!!!! At last you achieved”
“Yes sir, we made it”
I called up Ved and gave him the good news. A string of calls followed that day from the HO congratulating the team on the wonderful achievement.
We had gone ahead to achieve the weekly and monthly targets with a huge percentage and ended up getting good incentives.

TEN LACS on a single day. History was made. Till date the record is not been broken.

I remember Sadashiv telling me ones that the small stores need to make the most noise, like the crows in the terrace, to make your existence noticed. He had mentioned this when my store was facing a problem of not receiving proper stocks from the category even after informing them about the stock status in the store.
Now we all were very sure that we had made the maximum noice by achieving such a great target. This noice had really reached the HO because since then we witnessed a lot of changes. The senior category members, the marketing team and other members from the HO started giving attention to the store, and also making visits to the store. Because the store was doing so well even the Head of the Departments started giving their visit to the store.
For the next season I completely changed the entire look of the store. The layout of the store was also changed completely. More importance was given to the visuals and merchandise mix inside the store. The entire store was given a young look.