Posted: March 24th, 2015

Managing a Store Relocation Project: Marks and Spencer in Kendal

Managing a Store Relocation Project: Marks and Spencer in Kendal

Order Description

1. Who are the key stakeholders and how will they need to be managed during this project? [25%]
2. Complete a project plan and use this to provide an opening date for the new store. Explain your answer carefully. [50%]
3. Reflecting on your own experience of managing the delivery date of your assignment, to a tight schedule, critically appraise how well M&S are managing this project. [25%]
Assessment criteria
Marks will be earned for:
? Reference to and use of frameworks and tools from the course and wider reading, sometimes beyond the standard test and reading list. ?
Good application of the tools to the case data, especially that concerning stakeholder management, project planning and risk assessment. ?
Clear reporting ? Good decision-making and problem analysis

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Managing a Store Relocation Project: Marks and Spencer in Kendal1
Introduction
This case study describes the relocation a Marks and Spencer (M&S) store in Kendal, Cumbria, UK. The situation presented is a relatively unusual example of store development for the company – not just because it involves relocation, but because it involves the acquisition and refitting of an existing supermarket. The case begins with an overview of the objectives and broad management structure behind store development projects. The case then looks back to the actual Kendal relocation project schedule. We hear from three key managers closely involved in the scheme – the technical coordinator for construction services, the store planner and the store manager – who describe in detail the reasons for the relocation, progress to date and the work still remaining.
Marks and Spencer
M&S is one of the UK’s leading retailers with a group turnover of £10.3bn in 2013/14i. About half of the revenue is generated from food retailing and £1.2bn of revenue comes from international operations. The underlying profit before tax was £623m. There are 798 UK stores and 455 other stores located in 54 countries worldwide. The company employs over 85,000 people. For the last few years M&S has struggled to maintain market share in some categories of merchandise and investors have put the senior management team under considerable pressure.
The company’s stated strategy is to “transform M&S from a traditional British retailer to an international multi-channel retailer.”ii The recent UK strategy has been to refurbish existing stores “giving customers clearer, better-merchandised and more exciting stores”. It intends to increase UK retail space by 2.3% per annum. Annual capital expenditure is in the region of £0.75bn with store development focusing on “Simply Food” stores in the UK and 55 new stores internationally.
The decision to relocate an existing store is a major decision for the company, both in terms of the business risk and the amount of managerial effort and cost it incurs. A considerable amount of time, resources, research, planning and management effort will be invested. Numerous individuals and departments within the business will be involved, and many external organizations will contribute – all working to achieve the company’s financial and strategic objectives. Internally, the company will call on managers with expertise in research, financial planning, construction, design, marketing, merchandising, personnel and store operations, and externally the company will receive advice and services from specialist architects, designers, quantity surveyors, planning consultants and marketing agencies. Achievement of a new store opening on time and on budget is therefore critically dependent on effective organization, coordination, cooperation, communication and teamwork.
Among this network of contributors are those focusing on construction, and those focusing on the
1 This case was originally prepared by Malcolm Kirkup, Paul Walley and Daniel Ganly. The case has been updated by Paul Walley in 2014.
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commercial issues. The construction function ensures that the store building and infrastructure is delivered on time and on budget. Central to the construction function is the work of the store development group. Within this group, in overall charge of each new store development is a project manager, who is involved right from the early planning stages and will see the project through to opening day. The project manager’s role is to get the store completed, fully operational on time, on budget and to the desired quality standards, and to provide a building that can meet the commercial requirements of the business. The project manager relies heavily, however, on a team of technical and equipment coordinators, who manage the construction and fitting-out process, an internal architect, who looks after the corporate design aspects, an estates surveyor and also a store planner, who focuses on designing the store’s layout and interfaces between the commercial and construction sides of the project.
The commercial functions ensure that customer needs are satisfied through the offer made available in the new store, that sales potential is maximized and that the store is run efficiently to minimize costs. Central to the commercial success of a new store in this respect are the roles of the store manager, who has the local commercial aspects of the operation to consider, the divisional management team, which can guide and advise the store manager and store planner on issues such as staffing, merchandising and display, and the buying groups at head office, who will plan the ranges for new stores. Other head office groups are also critical to the success of a new store. The information technology department will install the systems which connect the store to distribution centres and the computer centre. The transport department will manage the task of physically getting the stock to new stores. The corporate affairs group will help the store management team in promoting the new store opening.
The Marks and Spencer Relocation Project in Kendal
The date is 10 January 2014. Marks and Spencer is six months into the schedule for a store relocation project in Kendal, Cumbria. In the text below we hear from three key managers closely involved in the scheme. Paul Mellor is the Kendal store manager, Mike Peterson is technical coordinator for construction services in the store development group and Katy Bull is store planner for the project. Their comments provide an insight into the reasons for the relocation, how the project is progressing and the tasks still to be carried out prior to the new store opening.
The Case for Relocation
Paul explains some of the background to the project. ‘Kendal is a busy market town in Cumbria on the south-eastern edge of the Lake District National Park, which is a popular tourist area. The town is close to the M6 motorway, and about 25 miles north of Lancaster. Figure 1 shows our current store in Kendal at 18-20 Stricklandgate. It’s a prime location in the High Street, where we are at the heart of shopping activity and we pick up a lot of passing trade. However, there are a number of problems with the site. The selling space, at 9000 square feet, is far too small to exploit the sales potential available in
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Figure 1. The locations of the old and new store sites
Kendal – the sales per square foot performances we’re achieving clearly show we can support a far larger store. The narrow frontage doesn’t reflect the offer behind the doors, and the long narrow shape of the store and bottleneck entrance doesn’t help either when you’re trying to create exciting merchandising. A worse problem is access to the rear of the store for deliveries – our lorries struggle to get down the narrow access roads and we pay a substantial rent for access rights across private land to get to our loading bay.
For many years the company has considered different ways to expand the old store. It was suggested at one time that we might buy the Burton site next door, but this would have cost a fortune both to buy the freehold and to integrate the buildings. We wouldn’t have generated a great deal more selling space, and the sales increase wouldn’t have justified the cost. We could have built a second floor and doubled the space by mirroring the ground floor footprint – but an already narrow store would be difficult to operate with extra escalators and stairs at the side. We looked at expanding to the rear, but this would have been on to land owned by the Westmorland Gazette, and we weren’t able to agree an acceptable financial deal.’
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‘Last August the company decided it really must sort out the Kendal situation once and for all, and relocation became the only real option. A greenfield edge-of-town development was unlikely to get planning permission, but an alternative opportunity arose to acquire an existing Fine-Food supermarket in the town. I alerted the business to the Fine-Food site a couple of years ago, located at the end of Library Road, off Stricklandgate. In 2013 I heard that Fine-Food were under pressure from local competition, and our acquisitions people in the estates department started seriously considering this site as an option. It is an unusual relocation choice, because we are effectively vacating a prime High Street site for a site that is off-pitch in terms of passing footfall and has to attract customers in its own right. The site isn’t that visible, and existing direction signs aren’t ideal. Furthermore, the Fine-Food building isn’t in the best possible state, and the general area has deteriorated.’
‘However, the site does have a number of significant advantages. For a start, it is the ideal footage we want, with the sales area all on one floor in a very workable footprint – operating efficiencies can therefore be achieved, meaning a significantly increased turnover but with proportionately less staff and management. We’ll end up with 26,000 square feet of net selling space, 5000 square feet stock area and 6000 square feet staff quarters. The large sales floor means we will be able to expand significantly our men’s and ladies’ clothing ranges, and offer childrenswear for the first time. We’ll also be getting fitting rooms for the first time. On the food side we’ll be able to double our footage. We won’t actually extend the food “range” much because we’ve already got a good range jammed in the current store – but we can give it more space which will help customers to find what they’re after more easily.
‘The new site has a large car park (160 spaces, although 70 of these are underground) which is ideal for food shoppers. It will be a “pay and display” facility, but our customers will get a refund. Access for deliveries is excellent, with a dedicated entrance and purpose-built underground delivery area. Another factor in favour of the site in the beginning was the possibility of a good financial deal, and we knew we would have the opportunity to sell or lease our current site to offset the development costs. The local planners like the idea of us taking on the site – our investment will further improve the look of the building and the immediate area. With Marks and Spencer as the tenant, neighbouring traders might also see the opportunity to improve the presentation of their own businesses. By relocating nearby, of course, we can also develop larger premises without disrupting the existing store or our trade in Kendal.’
Project Management
Mike explains his role in the project. ‘The Kendal project has an overall project manager who works in the store development group, and she oversees a number of projects around the country at the same time. Because the Kendal scheme is relatively small, I have been delegated much of the project management responsibility on the construction side. My job is to ensure that all the necessary building and fitting-out work is completed on time, within the costs that have been agreed, and to the right specification. I am the interface between the commercial side of Marks and Spencer, the design team and the building contractor. I have to make sure the right people provide the right information at the right time, to ensure that the construction and fitting-out programme runs to plan and the costs are controlled. I’ve had an interest in the Kendal scheme from the beginning, and I will see it through until a
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year after opening, after which the on-going maintenance of the store is handed over to another department.’
Katy explains her role as store planner for the project. ‘Store planner positions tend to be attachments and development posts within the business. Using our store management experience, we focus on ensuring that new stores are designed in a way that meets the commercial requirements of the business, maximizing sales in an attractive store environment and ensures that stores are operationally efficient to minimize costs. I liaise with all departments that have an interest in the design, building and operation of the store. I must ensure that the final layout meets the needs of the store manager, divisional management and also the buying groups – they are my clients. Effective communication is a critical requirement in my role. In Kendal the company’s objective is to increase footage and sales substantially, but not to increase costs substantially. We want to build efficiencies into the design of stores – we want efficient stock handling, tilling, fitting rooms, efficient backstage areas and so on. My brief therefore covers a range of layout and design issues: looking at the way stock is moved around the store, positioning walkways to facilitate customer movement around the store, planning public points of access and exit, designing backstage areas (including administration quarters), positioning fixtures such as food counters, fridges, tills and displays, and deciding the width of gangways. We also work out how much space to allocate to each of the main merchandise groups (e.g. the foodhall) using our extensive databases on sales densities in existing stores. The buying groups will work with me in getting the balance right. In general the areas of each department will relate to their expected turnover, but the time of year for the store opening and the type of town will also affect the mix.’
‘In addition to my contribution in the early stages of designing the store layout (alongside the architects, corporate designers and store manager), I will also get involved later in the project to plan the location of merchandising equipment (racks etc.). We need to know what we’re doing on these things about 12 weeks before opening, because it can take that long sometimes to order some of the equipment. I’ll also get involved in the last few months prior to opening, as the interior of the store takes shape, to make sure that our original plans are being delivered in practice. Sometimes you can come up against unexpected problems during the building process – particularly if you’re redeveloping an older building – such as hidden columns or differences in floor levels. As these problems arise, we may need to revise the layout around them. We also need to be around when the food and general merchandise groups are checking their final layouts, in case changes are necessary.’
‘I work closely with the project manager whose role is to deliver the particular design of store we’ve all come up with, on time and within budget. The project manager has complete control of the budget, i.e. the amount of money we’ve been allocated by the company to build the store. I had quite a few discussions with the project manager on budget issues prior to the monies being signed off for the scheme – if I had wanted something new incorporated into the store design I might have had to make a sacrifice elsewhere, because the budget can be quite tight. In some stores we have debates over things like vinyl versus marble flooring. At the end of the day the design scheme has to be appropriate for the budget available.’
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The Development Planning Process
Paul explains, ‘In the case of Kendal the whole process really got underway once the estates department had shown serious interest in the Fine-Food site on 9 August 2013. Right from the start the whole development planning process went without a hitch. I was involved from the beginning when we were doing the feasibility research, arguing vigorously in favour of the re-site, and I remember discussing the prospects with the footage assessment unit (FAU) when they were putting together sales estimates for the site in the summer. Quite a lot of research went into estimating the turnover and a host of factors were considered – existing sales performances, the proposed selling space available, the local customer profile, the size of the catchment population, local competition and so on. They also looked into how the new Kendal store might compare against other company stores with similar catchments. I fed into the FAU quite a lot of my local knowledge and views on Kendal to help in the turnover estimates.’
‘Mike has been closely involved in the planning activities at head office. ‘At the start of September we then went through to the preparatory planning stage, during which the scheme was subjected to progressively more and more detailed examination, and had to pass through a series of project boards’ before it could gain approval to proceed to the Capital Evaluation Committee (CEC) in early November. The preparatory planning stage started with probably a month’s work by a skeleton design team drawing up a broad outline of the proposed scheme. Once this had been agreed by the project board, we then studied the scheme in detail. Our architects, corporate designers and store planner produced detailed plans and layouts, even down to walkways, the food-grid and the location and size of the main sales departments. We needed detailed layouts at this stage because of the implications for costs, plant requirements, pipe runs and so on. Our quantity surveyors could then produce estimates of costs for the building and fitting-out works, and various financial evaluations could be carried out to see how the turnover estimates stacked up against the combined development and likely site acquisition costs, and what sort of return we might get. Once the final project board was happy with the scheme, the costings, the likely profitability and the outline timetable, we could then go to the CEC for ultimate approval for the funds and the go-ahead.’
‘After the initial feasibility research in August we then of course went into negotiations with Fine-Food, and we had to do the background planning in strict confidence. We had to be careful not to spark off any rumours of our interest in the site, which might upset the existing Fine-Food staff, until everything had been settled. This really hampered some of the early surveying, costing and planning work because we couldn’t get official access to the site to examine the building in detail. Talking to the local authority about potential planning requirements was also a bit tricky – we could only hold provisional discussions while the deal with Fine-Food was under wraps. I suppose the negotiations with Fine-Food didn’t take that long once the initial approach had been made. The critical stages were probably sorted by the end of October, although it took until December to conclude the exact purchase terms, sort out all me legal paperwork, agree a vacation date and so on. I remember we had a few problems with the land registry documents, which took a while to sort out. So, in effect, by the year-end Fine-Food were in a position to announce the sale.
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‘The project sailed through the Capital Evaluation Committee within a couple of weeks. All the research showed that the Kendal scheme would achieve the required returns, so the directors gave us me OK on the expenditure without a problem. As soon as we’d got CEC approval we went to tender on the “design and build” contract for the store. The building contractor who won the tender must have been up and running on the contract by the middle of November, beavering away on the detailed design stage with their appointed architects, quantity surveyors and various consultants, as well as talking to all the subcontractors who would be tendering to provide services and equipment for the store. We’ve worked closely with the building contractor of course, feeding in our views and guidance on die design and our construction requirements. We expect to hear from them any time now with the final design, detailed specifications, costings and the building timetable.’
Paul Mellor has also been involved throughout the planning process. ‘I’m making sure that I have an input on the internal design of the store, because of my commercial management interest. The sales floor plan is mainly developed by store planning, who work to a successful design formula. However, given that every store has a unique configuration and customer profile, there is always room for a local commercial manager to influence the layout. Throughout the preparatory planning stages, and in conjunction with my divisional office, I fed in my views on the location and sizes of departments, and on the positioning of customer service desks, tills, telephones and so on. I also felt quite strongly about the design proposals for the staff quarters and the location of the staff entrance. I want a canopy over the entrance – it rains so much in Kendal I can see staff getting soaked while they fiddle with their bags to get through the cardswipe. I’ve got views on how I want the car park run – ideally I want the local authority to manage it for us, and as part of the deal I’d like them to manage the greenery around the site as well. I think it is crucially important for the store manager to be involved in planning a new development – we have a valuable contribution to make and, after all, we’ve got to run the store once it opens.’
Paul explains the current situation on the deal with Fine-Food. ‘We agreed the final terms on the purchase just before Christmas, but of course the deal was still under wraps until the official announcement of the purchase the other day. Fine-Food naturally wanted to trade over Christmas. They’ve given their staff a month’s notice of the store closure, but they’ll close at the end of the month because they’ll need a week to remove their hardware and clear up.’
Planning the Work
Mike explains how the building work is likely to develop over the next few weeks, and the current position on planning approvals. ‘The building contractor will have access to the site from 14 February, and within a fortnight there will be scenes of organized chaos, peppered with hoardings, huts and hard hats. The building contractor will spend two weeks or so preparing the site, and then two weeks stripping the building, removing all the unwanted fixtures, fittings and services left by Fine-Food, and
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putting in the new roof insulation. Then work can begin in earnest on the installation of new sprinkler, electrical and mechanical services, and the new lift.’
‘We’ll send off for detailed planning permission for the building works in late February once Fine-Food have moved out, but we expect the dialogue with the local authority to continue for about three months before we get all the official approvals for the design, building regulations, signage and so on. It takes time to get all the necessary permissions, because some of the process requires statutory public notice periods to see if anyone has any objections. There shouldn’t be any problems with the planning authority though, because our planning consultants have been sounding out the council for some time on our proposals for the store, and they seem generally happy. The main things we’re seeking approval for are changes to the elevations and shop-front (moving from a sixties Swiss chalet look to a rustic look, and relocating the entrances), new directional signs on Library Road and new signs on the front of the store, and of course we’ll need building regulations approval.
‘The local planners have given us some ideas on what they want to see and what they don’t want to see in the development. They’ve set high standards for the style and type of development work in Kendal because it is classed as a conservation area. They prefer, for example, the use of natural stone if possible, and they are very sensitive on signage. We want to use internally illuminated signs for the store, but the council may insist on exposed downlights over signs. We’ll work hard to negotiate for the Library Road signage, because we want a sign that is bigger and higher than the Fine-Food one. The planners may also have views on our proposed expanse of glass in the new shop-front (which we want in order to maximize the amount of natural light on the sales floor). They may insist on mullions in the window so that we’re consistent with the vertical design emphasis on other shop-fronts in the town. Our plans are to use green signs and timber trolley corrals in the car park. Timber doesn’t really last long, gets smashed to smithereens and gives a real headache for maintenance, but we’ve decided not to use stainless steel because timber is more suited to the look we’ll be trying to achieve. We’ll also spend a lot of money making the car park lighting effective and making it more environmentally friendly.’
‘The planning approval process should be relatively straightforward for this site – fortunately the Fine-Food site already has an All Retail Store Use classification, so we won’t have to apply for a change of use, and there aren’t any restrictions on what can be sold. We’ll keep in close contact with the planners throughout the development work – it’s a big investment for us, so we want to make sure everything is acceptable and done properly.’
The Building and Fitting–out Process
‘The main objective for the building contractor will be to open as soon as possible. We’ll confirm the exact opening date once we’ve been on site a few weeks, and we’ll have progress meetings every four weeks anyway to make sure things are going to plan. We’ve got a few problems with the building to sort out. We’ve found quite a bit of damp on the site, which hasn’t been helped by the geography of the area, with water coming down from the granite and Cumbrian slate to the rear, and the expanse of wet
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woodland and park next to the site. The gutters have been damaged by snow, and are too small anyway. Much of the plant needs to be replaced -we’ll need new refrigeration plant, a new generator and lift, and we need to service the heating under the concrete delivery ramp (which stops it freezing in winter) because it isn’t working as far as we know. A lot of these problems of course were taken into account in the price we’ve paid for the building.’
‘We’ve got to fit out three levels of the building (see figure 2): the lower ground floor (underground car park, stockroom, refrigeration plant area and goods reception area), the ground floor (sales area and food hall, and backstage areas including the cold room) and the mezzanine floor (kitchen, toilets, offices and EPoS room). We won’t, however, be doing a gold-leaf job on the store, because there’s a limit to what we can spend, and we want to make as much use of the existing services and structure as possible.’
Figure 2 The new building layout
‘The ground floor fit-out will take place in three stages. It will take a week to install the high-level electrical, mechanical and sprinkler services above the sales floor and foodhall, and fix up the ceiling grid ready for the ceiling tiles to be added later. The CCTV equipment will be installed as soon as the electrical work is finished. After that we can start putting in some of the Marks and Spencer design features, like perimeter panelling, trims, skirting, coving, cornice and lighting, which will take five weeks. Once these are sorted, we can get the vinyl flooring down in the foodhall, the carpets down on the rest of the sales floor, drop the ceiling tiles into place and put the doors on. We can then install the
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equipment – for the fitting rooms, the Marks and Spencer financial services desk area, the customer service desk, the wall and mid-flooring merchandising equipment, food cases and shelving, tills and phones. This flooring and equipment stage will take about five weeks. The lobby area and the automatic doors on die shop-front will be left quite late so that we can get some of the larger equipment (particularly the refrigeration plant) into the store more easily. The sales floor needs to be handed over to the store manager two weeks before opening to give staff enough time for dressing.’
‘Backstage we need to get the coldroom fully operational and wound down to temperature in time for handover four weeks before opening. Getting all the necessary partitions and services fixed up will take about four weeks; then we can install the coldroom plant over a two-week period. The final activities backstage before handover will be a week’s work on joinery and decoration, and installing the Intrad fittings.’
‘On the mezzanine floor we need to fit out Paul’s staff areas. We’ll need seven weeks to sort the basic services and joinery for the offices, kitchen and toilets, and then probably four weeks to decorate, put the vinyl flooring and carpets down, do the final clean and take in the office furniture and kitchen equipment. We should be ready to hand over the staff quarters three weeks before the opening. We’re on a tighter schedule for the EPoS room, which needs to be completed and decorated in five weeks, and needs to be ready eight weeks before store opening, in time for the IT equipment (point of sale systems and distribution control) to be installed and tested by our head office IT specialists, so Paul will then be able to prepare for ordering activities.
‘On the lower ground floor we’ve got some general improvement works in the car parking area, and preparation of the stockroom and goods reception areas (including upgrading the dock-leveller/hoist and shutters), which will probably take nine weeks. The air conditioning plant, refrigeration plant and main switch panel will be installed as part of this process. The stockroom and goods reception areas should be ready for handover four weeks before opening.’
‘Aside from all the fitting-out work, we’ve also got to get all the major equipment commissioned, of course (which is included in the time scales mentioned earlier), which means checking and testing the sprinklers, air conditioning, refrigeration plant, alarms and so on, to ensure everything works the way it should. All the IT gear will be dry run and various tests done to make sure you can communicate and that the data check out, and all the tills will be tested once they’re hooked up. And then there’s the outside of the building -trolley corrals, minor improvements to the layout of the car park and new white lining and signs.’
‘Even when the store’s opened there may still be one or two snagging jobs to sort out – bits of the building or fitting-out process that we’re not happy with. These will need to be completed by the building contractor as soon as he can. I can’t imagine we’ll have any major problems because we’ve got a good team of people who are very experienced in developing and opening new stores, and the building isn’t particularly complicated. About six months after the opening I’ll go back for a project
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review day, so we can all get together with the contractor to see what’s worked and what hasn’t. If we’ve tried out any new lighting or colour schemes, we’ll review them and see how the plant has operated.’
The Local Commercial Operation
Paul is not sure yet when the new store might open. ‘In the early days of considering the Fine-Food site I favoured Easter for the opening or certainly no later than the spring bank holiday at the end of May, both of which are classic times to open – particularly Easter, because not only is it a peak in itself but it is also a good opportunity then to hit the kind of merchandise that sells well between Easter and Summer. The later you leave it the less window you have. Similarly, if you open in the autumn, you are set through to Christmas. For me, the most awkward time to open would be mid-season, because we would need to stock the current season’s merchandise as well as prepare for the next season. One problem with opening with current stock is that the availability of the best-selling items could be limited and if we’re not careful we’ll be left with a lot of poorer selling lines. If necessary, I’ll have to forecast what we’ll need to tide us over mid-season and make sure we have stocks reserved for us. The other issue with opening dates, however, is that, while we want to open as soon as possible from a commercial trading point of view, the last thing we want to do is rush it and risk things going wrong.’
Paul explains his role and objectives in the project. ‘Apart from my input on the layout of the store, my role will really come to the fore in the last 10 or 12 weeks before opening. Once we get under way, my objective will be to close the old store down successfully as well as open the new store, with minimal disruption to trade or damage to the image of Marks and Spencer in Kendal. I’ll want to close the old store at the normal time on the chosen Saturday and open the new store on the following Monday morning. I’ll need to maximize the standards and performance of the old store right up until it closes, and after closure I’ll need to ensure its left in an acceptable state – both operationally and visually.’
‘It will be my job to ensure that all the necessary preparations have been made for the new store to perform to its maximum potential from the moment it opens. I’ll also have to think about the implications of some of the new equipment, ranges and facilities we’ll be getting in our new store. The new store will conform to the new display standards that are part of the existing refurbishment plan. his will introduce new types of décor, shelving and display units.’
‘I will have a keen interest in monitoring how the building works are going, and communicating any alterations I think are necessary – to help the commercial performance of the store – back to the project manager. I’m fortunate, I suppose, compared to many store managers, in that I’ve had some experience of working on a store development project before. I’ve learned a lot of best practices, and I’ll be putting them into good effect on the Kendal scheme. One thing I must do is maintain good relations with the existing traders next to the Fine-Food car park. Once the builders move on to the site, the traders may complain that their business is affected. They shouldn’t be that worried, because when we do open they will benefit significantly from the greater number of customers around. What they sell is quite complementary to what we do, and there’s a super music shop and coffee bar. Actually, I also ought to
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have a word with the tenant on the corner who’s got rather messy premises and all his gear lying around. It’s right next door to where all our customers will come out, and I would like the whole area round there looking neat and tidy.’
‘I’ll want to keep in contact with the building contractor’s site manager, to keep tabs on how things are going. I can also then keep my staff up-to-date on progress – it’s important to build your staff up to the big opening day. I will also need to keep in close contact with our head office managers responsible for IT systems, buying, transport and corporate affairs, who will get more and more involved in the project as we get nearer to opening. I’ll also have to maintain close and cordial relationships with various local authorities, organizations and groups, partly to promote the scheme and keep them informed of progress, but also to make sure we’re meeting the needs of the local community.’
‘I’ll need to get involved in planning the promotional activities to publicize and support the opening. Our corporate affairs group organizes most of the promotions work for the opening of a new store, but we can influence the type of campaign and feed in our knowledge of the best local press and media to use. We’ve got an excellent local commercial radio station, The Bay, which covers our catchment area to a tee, so we’ll definitely use them, and we’ll look at the local papers, posters and other media possibilities with head office as well. The corporate affairs group has some well-established promotions material to use, but we can personalize the material with my signature and change the wording if appropriate. We could do something for charge-card holders, dignitaries and staff as well to help promote the store. We can’t really start working on promotions ideas or schedules until the builders are up and running – it would be dangerous to make assumptions about the definite starting date anyway until the project people have had a good look at the site. Once we start planning promotions we should have our ideas sorted within a month. As soon as we’ve confirmed the definite opening date we can look into the promotions schedule, which will focus on the main four weeks before launch day.
‘I also want to promote the Kendal project “within” the business. We’re one of half a dozen schemes being worked on at the moment, and we will be rather overshadowed by the big development at Warrington which is planned to open in mid-June. We won’t want head office to forget about us in Kendal – we’ll want to keep our profile up. I’m fortunate in that I’ve been allocated two extra managers for the duration of the project. To add to my existing personnel manager and finance manager, I’ve been allocated a deputy manager to help run the old store as well as plan the new one. I’m hoping that two months before we open I’ll also have the help of an operations manager – responsible for the hardware in the buildings, deliveries, servicing, security, equipment and that kind of thing. That person will be very necessary to think about the logistics of how we are going to get all our kit on to the sales floor, plan deliveries and so on, and, crucially, he or she will have responsibility for shutting down our old store. Within a week of opening the new store, I want the old store locked up and empty. I’m determined to trade in the old store in a fit state right to the end. I’m not accepting any lowering of staffing levels or customer service standards or stock levels, just because we’re shutting up.’
‘We’ll need to recruit and train 25 new staff, and I’ll organize that with my personnel manager. We’ll
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probably need three months in total for this, with the last month on training. Training is vital in the lead-up to a new store opening, particularly training on customer service. Most of the new staff will work in operational, cleaning and catering jobs and they will work a variety of different hours. We shouldn’t need any more supervisory staff than we’ve already got. We’ll be able to operate the new store with probably only ten extra staff, yet we’ll take a vastly higher turnover. This comes down to efficiency because of the layout of the new store.’
‘We’re not strictly allowed into the store to “work” until the last fortnight, although we’ll be able to pop in and out to have a look as it develops. I want to get into the new offices at least a week before opening. I want to take over the sales floor two weeks before opening so we’ve got plenty of time to do the dressing. We can dress the clothing up to about 90 per cent of its eventual completion, with the remaining 10 per cent being stock that we’ll have in the old shop and bring over at the last minute. Food can be more of a last thing, because of the freshness consideration, but we can still dress the long-life departments in the last week, ticket it and cover it with polythene.
‘There will be a process of stock-building in the distribution centre prior to the opening of the store, but this will be organized by a department at head office. This stock-build will happen gradually so that the store opening doesn’t suddenly create a hole in the distribution system. For the stock-build we’ll need to know exactly when we’re opening, because it will affect the type of merchandise that is built up. I’ll want a say in the catalogue of merchandise planned for the store, and I’ll discuss this with the various merchandise groups at an appropriate stage, although I expect we’ll mainly be allocated just the core lines. I think we’ll possibly need more rainwear ranges and walking gear because of where we are. The stock-building process within the store itself (which is one of my main responsibilities) will happen over a two-week period, but deliveries need to be phased carefully. I’ll organize this with the operations manager. On the display side, divisional office will order the frames and cardboard to arrive in time for floor dressing, and they’ll send display specialists down to help get the store ready.’
‘The last weekend will be a real challenge with all the final preparations. I’m not sure what time we’ll open on the Monday -I’ll think about that nearer the time.’
i Taken from http://corporate.marksandspencer.com/investors/key-facts
ii Taken from http://corporate.marksandspencer.com/investors/fe827a51c3574257b5794bc754f6da56

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