What is Retail Workflow Management? Why Implement it?

Retail workflow management is the science and art of planning the execution of business processes and operations in a retail enterprise. It is a sum total of multiple principles, policies, tools, and practices applied to achieve better management of retail operations. The idea is to bring all the processes and operations within the scope of planning and execute them accordingly. Technically, the planned retail business processes and operations are presented in the form of flowcharts or any other suitable diagrammatic form aided by SOP manuals.

Implementing retail workflow management helps businesses in achieving smooth internal and external operations. Few important benefits are underlined below.

• Timely and accurate purchase of inventory, maintaining desired stock levels, adherence to merchandising strategies
• Improved cash handling, accounting, and financial management
• Consistency in delivering the desired customer experience – visual merchandising, in-store experiences, quicker checkout, accuracy in order fulfilment
• Better coordination with suppliers and service providers,
• Assistance in fulfilling regulatory compliances,
• Better performance of employees and teams, PMS
• Better interdepartmental coordination
• Groundwork for automation

How YRC can help your business

Process Design and Mapping

Our experts will conceptualise, design, and map the entire gamut of business processes and operations applicable to your retail enterprise. We use Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and retail business process flow charts. The goal is to bring forth and establish how every process in your retail business shall be executed. It could be about how your business manages purchase and inventory, carries out customer support, hires employees, handles cash and accounts, conducts audits, etc. With SOPs for retail store operations in place, every team member in every process and every department would remain in clear understanding of what they are supposed to do and when. The required operational standards shall be defined for every activity so that your employees know what to deliver.

Process Optimisation

Our objective is not only to map processes but also to rediscover the best ways to execute them. To achieve this, our experts consider many factors. For example, they examine the relevance of every operational activity in a process. If the activity is non-relevant or not contributing to the overall process goals, it may be removed from the process. This enhances the speed of the process and also reduces the unnecessary workload of employees. This may sound like a very ordinary technique but in business, we tend to ignore many such minute operational details. On the macro scale, such redundant activities pile up to create significant process inefficiencies. But if you get them sorted from the root, they can no longer be the hidden ghosts.

Process Standardisation

Many people construe process standardisation as infusing standards into processes. Process, as a concept, already includes standards. Process standardisation is following the same set of procedures or workflows for the same process. For example, you cannot have different sets of operational standards for customer support in the different branches of your retail brand. But if you do not have a process in the first place, there is no benchmarking to follow.

When we develop SOPs and retail workflows, we seek to ensure that these could be implemented all across. Minor improvisations may be necessary to suit local business and operational requirements. But on the overall, your business will operate with uniformity and consistency in processes and operations.

Secure Inter-functional Coordination

The success of a process also depends on its ability to coordinate with other processes. For example, for HR to process payroll, they need to coordinate with the finance department for the disbursal of salaries. If this coordination is not well-planned, both the payroll and the salary disbursal process get hampered. Even if it is a small business, this inter-functional coordination is required. Thus, when our experts plan and develop the retail SOPs, they take into consideration these inter-functional dependencies. With the help of retail flowcharts, it becomes easy for employees from different departments to spot the junctures where processes cross paths. In small businesses, achieving this coordination is not difficult. But with larger businesses and complex processes, it is always better to have a well-established operational roadmap in the form of retail workflow operational processes.

Become Process-oriented

Our vision in offering retail workflow management solutions is to help your business become a process-oriented enterprise. By this, we mean that we will strive to ensure that every process and operation in your retail enterprise shall be carried out in a planned and systematic manner. Any operational detail that can be planned will be brought under the ambit of operational planning. With robust operational mapping, you can remain assured that the right tracks have been laid. Of course, this does not negate the need for supervising and monitoring but the same gets drastically reduced. For instance, if you own a retail store, with a well-planned retail store management system in place, you would not have to get extensively involved in the routine operational affairs of your store.

Retail Operations Manuals

Flowcharts are a great way to understand workflows. But not every process or process component could be deciphered in terms of flowcharts, at least not while retaining simplicity. Briefs and short explanations become necessary sometimes. This is where operations manuals come in handy. Apart from text-based explanations and images, workflow charts can also be added to operations manuals. Having operations manuals significantly simplifies the need for supervision. They serve as an operational guide to employees. We relish practising the science and art of presenting even the most complex of business processes and operations in a concise and comprehensive manner that can be easily picked up by the users.

Assistance in Decoding Business Software Requirements

If you are contemplating digitising your retail enterprise, we can help you in identifying the software requirements vis-à-vis your business requirements and finalising a suitable software platform. A critical prerequisite to ascertaining the business-software requirements and zeroing in on a suitable software platform is having your business processes and operations defined. You cannot choose the right software if you do not already know the operational and strategic business requirements. This is the point where our retail workflow design services links with helping you choose the right software platform for your retail enterprise. The final decision on what software product to buy and from whom shall be yours.

About Your Retail Coach (YRC)

YRC is a retail and eCommerce consulting firm with a rich experience of having worked with more than 500 clients across 25+ verticals. As a brand with a budding international presence, we seek to uphold international standards in service design and delivery. We engage professional and experienced retail consultants.

To know more about retail consulting services or for a quick word with one of our retail operations consultants, please drop us a message.

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