"With Retail FOCUS we can get new stores up and running faster, as well as re-planning existing shops using our current team of regional managers." Barry Coles, National Development Manager, Costcutter Supermarket Group Background
The Yorkshire based Costcutter Supermarket Group with a chain of over 800 stores in the UK alone, and affiliations overseas, is one of the fastest growing names in the C-Store market sector. Costcutter offers a number of services to member stores operating under its banner, which include, group buying and merchandising, EPoS systems and store planning and fitting services. One of these services is being enhanced with Retail FOCUS from Visual Technology, the application for delivering accurate and comprehensive store space plans, complete with schedules of shop equipment and the ability to dynamically link to merchandise plans and sales information. Costcutter's National Development Manager, Barry Coles, has a team of Business Development Managers (BDMs) who act as consultants throughout the group helping store owners to determine the optimal plan for their stores. The merchandise plan within each individual store, and therefore the schedule of equipment required to fit out the shop to high standards, is part of Costcutter's service. An important consideration is to maintain a consistent look and feel for each store within the group. Working together with the Costcutter architect and shopfitters, their BDMs ensure that store specific plans are drawn, priced and agreed. However it may take a number of iterations to get a plan approved. Obviously the mix of equipment specified can have significant cost implications if a large proportion is refrigerated or chiller units. Until now this whole process has been manual, with multiple site visits and with the aid of a drawing board. Using their experience and well-tried and tested store-banding guidelines, this has become an important part of the Costcutter success formula. Toward the end of last year, Barry started exploring ways of providing even better service to the fast growing number of group members. Amongst solutions that were explored was the use of CAD to generate store plans, which could be linked to the architect. Although this would automate the drawing process to a high degree, it would not provide the comprehensive annotated space plan, nor equipment schedules and cost estimates. These would still remain a manual process. Amongst the organisations with whom Barry met was Visual Technology. At VT's Nottingham office within the University Science Park, he and David Thompson, the Costcutter Sales and Development Director, were introduced to Retail FOCUS. With David's experience in the application of IT systems to retail business, he recognised a key requirement in the creation of a store planning "knowledge-base" that can swap information with other Costcutter databases. Costcutter selected Retail FOCUS as the application to satisfy their needs with the minimum of training required to implement and operate a working system.
"This was a great opportunity for Visual Technology to work with an enthusiastic team that has coupled its significant experience in planning supermarkets with Retail FOCUS, to automate a previously manual function" Mark Teichman, Sales Director, Visual Technology Key Features
A unique service to Costcutter Supermarkets Group members creates market differentiation. Creation of accurate floor plans that are populated with fully specified equipment, thus enabling Costcutter Development Managers the on-site facility to modify the plans for alternate cost scenarios. Automated import of drawings in electronic form from the architect. Ability to plan remotely at a client site using a laptop PC. Users can plan remotely at a client site using a laptop PC, and then link to Costcutter Head Office server A central database of store equipment within Retail FOCUS can be used to customise layouts on a store-specific basis. Alternate footage schemes for shelving, refrigeration, counters, point of sale and checkouts are applied rapidly to test for optimum merchandise mix. Rapid creation of specialist departments within different categories of store. s Creation of a single database, holding plan and equipment inventory of each individual store, with automated link to merchandise planograms from Galleria's DSP system in the next phase.	Costcutter can plan opportunities for more seasonal and special promotions, and identify where it is possible to implement them using existing store equipment and schedule what equipment might be needed to fully implement these plans. The use of standard Microsoft technology allowing future integration within Costcutter IT systems standards. Customised design of fixtures complete with a list of components to create a special feature within the architectural limitations of individual stores. Automated production of quality individual store plans for every Costcutter manager or owner, which can be updated and issued for recommended changes in layout throughout the year. Ultimately a linkage to EPoS databases to highlight hot spots and cold spots within each store, and accurately calculate the performance of each individual store No prior CAD or PC skills are needed create working plans