Transformation Management – Case

Context

A white, grey and brown goods retail chain with more than 60 stores, revenue of some € 330 million and 1.000 employees had established strategy induced core values and corresponding behavioural competences through a bottom-up process involving the whole organisation. These values were widely communicated to no avail.

One year later, the CEO wants to leverage on workshops 2009 and also wants to develop management and leadership capabilities at all organizational layers.

In addition, there is an important and costly employee turnover in the stores (200 leaves per annum) due to leadership issues (from exit interviews) and poor engagement as a result.

Approach

In addition to develop leadership skills, the organisation needed to learn how to align people and strategic goals in the stores.

Together with the sales management of the company we developed an integrated approach to assist store and district managers to involve the store personnel in developing, implementing and following up on action plans aligned with the company’s strategic goals.

The practical training program for district and store managers yielded a sustainable improvement in operational performance in the stores.

This approach was tested during one quarter on six pilot stores; then half of the remaining stores were tackled during the next half year. An evaluation was made before extending the program to the second half of the chain.

Results

Comparing year-on- year results for the one half of the stores that has gone through the program with the other half that had still to undertake it, key strategic indicators yielded following results:

  • Difference in customer reception score measured by mystery shopping: + 28 %
  • Growth of revenue: + 3,7 % vs + 2,8 % ( =difference of € 3 million on yearly basis)
  • Growth in cross selling of products and services: + 49 % vs + 27 %
  • Employee turnover halved: 3,1 % vs 6,2 %

As of today, while no formalised extension of the program has been implemented, the practices and tools acquired during this project continue to be used.