Voted Best Fresh and Chilled Convenience Retailer of the Year 2006, Budgens has been a community food retailer for over 125 years and is recognised for supporting local producers and offering great local deals. During 2002, Budgen was taken into private ownership by Musgrave, Ireland’s largest food and grocery distributor.

The intention is to convert the business from a corporate store model to one of a franchise, run by owner-operators. This conversion is a gradual process and has been under way since 2005. It has brought about many logistical and commercial issues; and has affected field and store management, staff and even customers, as:

• Store managers have been unsure of their long-term security
• Staff have been unsure of their job security
• Uncertainties led to a drop in customer service levels
• Unprofitable stores are less attractive to franchisees

Field managers, store managers and other full-time employees have been uncertain whether they would be retained by any new owners.  As the number of corporate stores has decreased, retaining staff and maintaining their morale, is necessary to continue running a profitable operation.

Stores also need to maintain their appeal and value proposition to potential new owners, whilst meeting current business targets. Failure to do so on an on-going basis would almost certainly jeopardize Budgens’ business model. 
 
Geoff Langston of Arizion was contacted by Vince Maloney – Budgens’ Sales director, to discuss how to address these issues with senior field and store managers. He had previously worked with Budgens on a management development program and had produced and delivered a customer-service training program for the company.  Geoff set out a number of key deliverables to the senior team, namely:

• Initial consultation to define objectives and expectations
• Field research (including store visits)
• Presentation of project recommendations
• Ongoing consultation throughout the project lifecycle
• Presentation of project review at company conference

A selection of 25 pilot-stores was consulted and by incorporating thoughts and ideas from the managers and staff, a number of key performance targets were established, typically these included:

• Levels of customer service at the checkouts
• Service offered to customers during their shopping journey
• Appearance of both the store and members of staff
• Availability of key products at all times

A program of mentoring has been introduced, whereby senior managers and directors work in tandem with the pilot stores, to provide encouragement, motivation and support. Performance in these vital areas is reviewed at field and store level, with ad-hoc visits being made to those stores failing to achieve target.

A series of mystery-shop exercises are regularly performed, with the results of those stores taking part in the pilot being compared to the remainder. These comparisons were distributed amongst the directors and senior managers; and based on the improvements seen in customer-service, availability and appearance over the initial 6 months, it has been decided that the program should be implemented across all stores.  

This program has been so successful that it now forms part of corporate culture; with new and re-fitted stores receiving the same mentoring, motivation and support program.

 "Arizion brought clarity in identifying our issues. They provided practical solutions and ensured efficient implementation across our Corporate Store portfolio. They achieved targeted results by working closely with all levels of our management and store teams.
Geoff encourages individuals to take ownership and responsibility, and we saw significant changes in attitude and behaviour from everybody involved"
"We are delighted to recommend Arizion for the development of management and leadership teams in any organization"

Vince Maloney – Sales Director