© 2023 by Nick Gausling & Romy Group LLC (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The head of the Division had a hunch that his stores were closing too early relative to competitors and missing a substantial amount of sales. Anecdotal pushback from the field was that customers simply came back the next day or at a time that the store was open, but the Division head believed that many of these sales were being lost. Even worse, missed sales opportunities in this industry often meant losing that potential customer for years.
In coordination with corporate partners, I designed a test & learn approach to examine the Division head’s hypothesis. Some stores were marked as control and kept to the old system while the others tried extending their hours. The data was then analyzed after a statistically-significant period.
The research confirmed the Division head’s hypothesis and found that the extended hours would result in an estimated eight-figure increase in annualized incremental sales at an appropriate confidence interval. The data further parsed specifically which hourly changes were most responsible so that only the necessary changes could be made permanent. Showing this data to the field and its subsequent impact on their commissions also helped earn their buy-in.
The Company’s e-commerce team (human-assisted sales and operations) had historically not been a high priority in a very legacy retail environment, but circumstances had suddenly pushed it into the spotlight. The organizational structure was muddled with confusing reporting lines, unclear responsibilities, and high-level performers not being used to their best.
I built the groundwork for the reorganization of the team through extensive research and due diligence, interviewing and compiling insights from the people who had lived through the changes and were experiencing the problems. After delivering my findings to the senior executive in charge and other relevant HR partners, the department was subsequently reorganized.
Following the changes, the department experienced an incredible eight-figure YoY improvement to both revenue and EBITDA. Key personnel were much happier with the new, leaner arrangement and the team was also able to provide a major boost to customer experience.
The Division had the highest labor cost of any in the Company. A substantial driver of that cost was sales associate and local leader bonuses based on revenue targets. The targets were mostly being set according to a default formula from the corporate Finance department without any consideration for driving down labor cost through strategic and targeted allocations. As a result, many teams were collecting easy bonuses for hitting targets they didn’t personally impact much, while others with higher skill and performance were being penalized for things largely outside their control.
I worked with the Finance department to revise this process for the Division, taking a very strategic, targeted approach based on data to shift pressure from the better performers who were struggling to hit their unreasonably high targets and instead put pressure on the lower-performing teams that were getting a free pass.
The changes resulted in a seven-figure reduction to annualized labor expense by driving down the unjustified bonus payouts. It also gave realistic targets to the more talented sales personnel who previously had been missing their payouts, giving them greater motivation to perform.
© 2023 by Nick Gausling & Romy Group LLC (CC BY-SA 4.0)