Good news! It’s Friday! The end of the week is here and the weekend is upon us.
It is also a great opportunity for retailers worldwide to evaluate their week. Ideally on Fridays, teams should have clear visibility into the week’s end performance, amend actions taken earlier in the week, and confidently understand the change to the KPI’s that were in question on Monday. Finally, teams should have time available to get prepped and ready for the coming week. Whether it’s strategy sessions, brainstorming or conversations regarding the upcoming marketing calendar, these Friday hours should be easily devoted proactively in order to continue to move the needle on the larger strategic initiatives across the organization. Overall, Fridays should prove to be a quiet time for focus and collaboration, which are fundamental to take a business to the next level.
That is exactly what Fridays look and feel like for merchants and analysts, right? Well, sadly, that is not the case.
Too often in retail, Friday is no different than Monday or Tuesday. At this point, hours and days have slipped by while merchants have tried to define what last minute weekly changes can be made to hopefully show a positive improvement to the KPIs in question from the week prior. As teams struggle to resolve questions that were posed on Monday, they will feel pressured to resort to one of two things:
- The Hail Mary
- The Silent White Flag
The Hail Mary is that last minute attempt to make a gut decision with the hopes that on the following Monday the trend line will show a drastic change in direction. In this case, what was a question mark at the beginning of the week will magically be solved at the end of the week by a complete chance decision. Perhaps days of trying to find an answer can get the team to a few options, but nothing conclusive is typically determined. Since it is Friday, some action, any action, has to be taken. After all, not too many retail merchants and analysts want to be the one on Monday who stood by stricken with data paralysis.
Even more intriguing is The Silent White Flag. The phenomenon where teams make it to Friday with no clue as to why an issue occurred. They have no conclusions or ideas to even act upon, and by the end of the week, they are banking on the chance that their questions will fade away into the weekend - never to return. Not a bad bet, since all to often the new week brings new questions and anything from prior weeks is swiftly overpowered, ignored or swept under the rug. Aside from not being able to pin point the business problem, the hidden concern is that those questions could (and generally will) become a larger issue over time. Is this the start of a recurring problem that we could only take care of upon acknowledging its origins? White-flag wavers can only hope that this is not the case. Here, the lack of awareness leads to lack of confidence and ultimately no decision is made.
These apparently different, but equally disastrous Friday decisions (or lack thereof), are signals of operational opportunity that is systemic in retail organizations across the globe. Just think of how many Hail Mary’s and White Flags were part of your team’s week. Is it acceptable to face a question on Tuesday and ignore it all week, because it could vanish in the following? Is it a responsible business practice to make last minute calls on Friday when they can directly lead to an even larger ripple in the future? If you answered “No” to either of those questions, then your teams and organization have an opportunity for change.
This change to operational efficiency can be achieved through connected data made available first thing Monday morning, immediate and perspective actions alerted to the team so they can be taken early in the week, prioritized analysis of data and strategic initiative, all so you can arrive at Friday and truly ring it in confidence. However, showing is better than telling, so allow me to do so:
Hopefully the above is starting to look familiar, as this has been the foundation behind my Week in the Life blog series. Looking back over my previous posts, the conversation has centered around how retailers can re-imagine their work week. It is important for teams to understand what they are able to change throughout the week, so that when Friday arrives, there are no White Flags or Hail Mary’s. How your team operates on Friday illustrates the impact of how the team has operated throughout the week. Friday is the best day to observe the importance of instituting this new operational approach. The last working day of the week is not only the marker for how teams are prepared to start their next week, but the marker for how successful and proficient they are throughout. All the way through this series, the changes and solutions that we have discussed modify retailers’ weekly operations to achieve higher success based on conscious, informed and confident decisions. It is imperative to provide prescriptive analytics in order to compete in today’s market and thrive in 2016 (and beyond). As our teams have studied retailers and their weekly operations, many trends have emerged that signal a retail operation that is prime to compete effectively in this coming year. Choosing to adopt this approach will yield high returns, not only in profitability but also with time-savings and strategic gain.
I hope you have found this series interesting, informative and a compelling insight that can empower change. I look forward to your feedback and comments on the topic and connecting with you again on the next conversation. Find me on Twitter at @lconwell22 or with DynamicAction @Retail_Dna! Here’s to a successful and operationally effective 2016 for you and your teams!
