CONT'D...

I called for a meeting of all the managers one day early in the morning at 9 am at the store. We held the meeting at the back office of our store itself. It was very small office, which had only four work stations. All the department managers and the senior staff members were called for the meeting. Everybody settled themselves, some adjusting the chairs, some trying to get hold of a pen and note pad, and few trying to make space for them.
“Good morning everybody”
“Good morning sir” replied the group.
“The agenda for today’s meeting is to discuss the store timing, lay-out plan for the store and other common issues.”
“To begin with I want to ask the group if we can change the store timing in the morning from 11am to 9am and in the evening from 9pm to 10pm.”
Nobody responded. When I looked at Vinod and Vishal they just smiled back. The others started looking at each other, hoping someone among them will respond.
“Yes Vinod, since you are the senior most among the group….”
“Sir, in Pune, actually speaking, customers do not come for shopping so early in the morning.” He then looked at the group and laughed. Everyone then started laughing.
“We had tried this out earlier” said Vishal.
“Don’t you agree that there are many jobs to be done in the morning apart from assisting customers? How can these jobs be done efficiently when customers are already on the floor. I think we should give at least half an hour to set the store before the first customer walks inside our store. That is the reason I want the store to open a bit early, in the sense the first shift commences early, even if the doors to customers be opened a bit late, but not 11am. Barista and Mc Donald open at 9am. That means customers are coming. And the first film show also starts at 9:30am.”
“But we close the store late in the evening sir” said Vinod.
“Shouldn’t we look at customer’s convenience and serve them rather than looking at our own convenience. Since last week I have observed that customers are entering the mall even at 10:30 in the evening. Not only that, the last show commences at 11:15pm. Just imagine, by keeping the store open for another one hour we can get so many customers and increase our sales.”
“I feel we should open the store at 9am in the morning and keep it open till 10pm in the evening”
There was silence in the room.
“Let us try it out. What’s the harm in trying? And I myself want to check it out. We will keep it for one week and see how it works. If it does not work we will change it back to normal. Fair enough?”
Everybody agreed.
“So, Vinod and Vishal, it’s your responsibility to plan the shifts accordingly, prepare a proper schedule accordingly stating the two shifts, first shift from morning 9am to 6pm in the evening and the second shift from 1pm to 10pm in the evening.”
“Ok, sir” came the reply.
“Great”
“Vinod, how often do you change the layout of your department, or, I should say move the fixtures, so as to make things look different for the customers who come in your department.”
Vinod looked puzzled.
“We usually change the display of the merchandise, move them around, but not the fixtures, sir.” replied Vishal.
“Yes, sir, we do not shift the fixtures.” expressed Vinod in a way as if it would be a crime if done so.
“Why?”
“Sir, strict instructions from the category team” Vinod replied looking at Vishal this time. Vishal nodded.
“Have you tried?” I looked at Vinod.
“They do not want the store team to do it”
“Why is it so?”
“We may spoil the layout and damage the fixtures”
“And who from the category gave this instructions and to whom”
No one had a clue to this. I knew it was just a paradigm created. I immediately announced that we will change the layout of the store and would like the entire team to come with ideas.
Everybody in the room got a jolt.
“We will show the category team that we are responsible enough, give them good results and would not let them down, do not worry, I shall take responsibility in case the category team complaints or take any action.
The entire team took up the challenge and were ready to do the changes required inside the store. The result was as I expected, and the team also became more active and motivated.

The next important thing which I observed was the floor staffs were not aware of the day to day sales proceeds, their daily targets, and also were not assigned their daily tasks for the day apart from selling. I immediately decided to take weekly meetings of the staff wherein they used to be updated on all the activities related to the store and of course the organisation as well. Apart from this there also used to be an entertainment session where one or two among the staffs had to perform some activity. Gradually the staffs started enjoying the weekly meets. It also became the responsibility of the Department Managers to keep a track of the staffs day to day activities and the targets for all individual staffs.
As the Department Managers were initially not aware of the Annual Business Plan it was updated to them and gradually they independently started tracking their individual departments Annual Business Plan with the actual sales. What interested me more here in this store was the eagerness of the staffs to learn something new everyday. And what enjoyed me more was that there were so many things for me to teach them on retailing.