Guest Column: Four Ways Direct Communication Can Improve Productivity And Efficiency In Stores

By Noel Goggin, RedPrairie

Aaron has been a store manager with a rapidly growing U.S.-based retailer for eight years. He loves his job, the people he works with, and the business he works for – and it shows in the way his establishment looks, operates, and attracts customers.

As the company seeks to gain an industry foothold outside of its home base, Aaron has become recognized as a valuable asset: His stores, after all, are the face for new consumers in different markets.

However, what Aaron is doing, and what he could be doing are very different.

Currently, there is a huge opportunity for retailers to reinvest store management time by using employee management technology to provide more direct communication of tasks to stores. Consider the following facts:

• More than 70 percent of store management time is spent off the store floor
• The majority of communication to each store is not store-specific
• Generic instructions need interpretation at each store, and often redirect personnel to other data sources to complete a single task