Delivering continuous productivity improvement in SPAR Experience.

SWL is a specialist business, recognised for its expertise in delivering Grocery productivity improvement solutions.

SWL consults with many Food Retailers on their strategies for efficiency, and importantly on how they can realise their vision of productivity & service improvement in-store.

Established in 1990, SWL’s 25 year old brand is characterised by broad and deep experience with Food Retail clients that include: Tesco, Sainsburys, M&S, McColl’s, Shell Select, and BP Connect/ Wild Bean Café.

SWL are dedicated to growing profits by providing ‘continuous productivity improvement’ to operational stakeholders in varied and complex Grocery retail environments. Productivity 1 IDENTITY Story.

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Continuous Productivity Improvement. SWL has a Customer Specific Continuous productivity improvement wealth of productivity expertise in Grocery.

SWL are the company which enabled Tesco’s ‘one-in- 6 SUSTAIN 3 ANALYSE front’ initiative, and the developers of the Tesco labour model for all Tesco formats from Express to Extra stores. These initiatives provided Tesco with a significant service edge over competitors and leveraged Tesco’s operational 5 ACT 4 INTERPRET performance. SWL also led the automation of Sainsbury’s Labour Forecasting, Store HR and Daily Instore Costing systems across its enterprise from its Sainsbury Local’s to its Whether it’s a large format INTERPSPAR, or a smaller biggest Sainsbury’s Superstores. From this foundation SWL format SPAR/ SPAR EXPRESS, SWL knows that all retail & Sainsbury’s then delivered a Clear-Match Project which partners seek to grow profits whilst protecting service & re-aligned over 50,000 Sainsbury’s colleagues hours, so brand values, and whilst ensuring the right labour budget is Sainsbury’s Customers could be served better with less HR used for the relevant trading period. SWL understands what costs. the blockers are to efficiency, and SWL can immediately advise on what to; Stop, Start, Continue and Do Differently SWL’s solutions are all about continuous productivity to enable Retail Partners to quickly be more efficient. improvement. SWL doesn’t pre-diagnose a partners operational condition. SWL ‘seeks to understand’ this first, by SWL’s proven process of treating each Customer as unique, engaging in the specific partners operational environment enables SWL to be specific, relevant and minimise risk both instore and at head office. Measurable improvement for each individual SPAR partner. SWL’s goal will always is then based on the ‘Operational Facts’ and local market, be to provide positive productivity change, measured by with a scientifically measured & benchmarked ‘As Is’ store sustained service, sales and cost performance in store. performance. One well established Grocer chain, as part of it’s desire to Productivity. create a town ‘Market place’ feel – decided to ‘hang-up’ bananas in the fresh produce area , not unlike an outside ‘Market stall’. This is about creating a ‘perception’, however the ‘trade-off’ is that it is in-efficient to maintain, not SWL delivers Productivity improvement through competitive ,and costly compared to the alternatives for a Science and Experience. 500+ grocery chain.

It starts by understanding and measuring ‘what happens now‘ in a store’s operations. This often uncovers the TODAY’S STORE phenomenon of operational NOISE. It is NOISE that creates blockers to productivity. NOISE occurs from the interaction TODAY’S STORE between People, Process and Systems resulting in in- Measure & efficiency and negative variation. Understand 1. Blocks to e ciency

2. Variability NOISE is largely negative, and needs to be eradicated or £ 3. Inconsistency at least minimized and managed. Our goal in project is to PERFORMANCE PRODUCTIVITY NOISE 4. Non-value address this negative variance. However, it’s true to say that (Productivity Distortion & Blockers) store Processes

‘accepted NOISE’ also co-exists. This is when a process is OPERATIONAL PRACTICES & PROCEDURES inefficient but is purposely done by the Retailer and is an intended and accepted way the business works and part of brand. TRANSFORMATION

A good example of this is perhaps ‘visual merchandising & replenishment’. The Retailer may seek to show individualism APPLY 1. E cient work and minimalism in the display. Whilst this is perhaps visually Standards impactful, it may not be the most productive approach to 2. Eect use of Time sell product or maintain availability. Therefore, the Retailer 3. Correct accepts an ‘in-efficiency trade-off’ with the expectation of a Processes (Reduction Variation, Consistency of Performance) 4. Performance PRODUCTIVITY PERFORMANCE PRODUCTIVITY positive ‘branding/ marketing’ outcome. Currencies & Control

OPERATIONAL PRACTICES & PROCEDURES Solutions.

SWL provides ALL of the elements to deliver every Solution’s measurable improvement objectives.

Professional Services include: Scientific data measurement on-site, Detailed data capture & analysis, Data evaluation & Interpretation, Variance analysis, Labour model production, Benefit delivery, Change management, Sustaining benefit/ Minimising risk. Other specialist services include: Project Management, Provision of a Managed Service Solution, Training, and Support services. SWL follows a robust Prince II methodology.

PRODUCTIVITY MANAGED SERVICE

SOFTWARE SERVICES HOSTING

SWL Balanced Scorecard Productivity Consultancy Data Management

SWL SmartBudget Project Management Performance Management

SWL ClearMatch Work Standards Production Hardware Performance Management

SWL ESS Labour Model Build

SWL Profiler+ Maintenance of processes & models

SWL T&A

SWL CCE

Software - SWL provides central and In-store software & hardware solutions. The overall Software suite is called ‘The SWL Productivity Suite’ and consists of modules which can either ‘Stand-alone’ or be ‘Integrated’ together. There are 7 modules. How they fit within a solution will always be driven by the partner specific situation. The following guides on each module’s purpose;

SWL-BALANCED SCORECARD Currencies, controls, thresholds and alerts that interpret today’s productivity performance for service improvement and recovery.

SWL-SMARTBUDGET Delivers store specific costs and Labour Hours budgets across all formats for the day, week, and Year. It recognises unique Trading Data & Profiles, Seasonality, Minimum manning, Base weeks, & Productivity Factors based on work study data in the Labour Model.

SWL-CLEARMATCH Matches individual HR contracts and costs with Store specific workloads. Enabling the build of the ‘Best or Ideal shifts/ HR contracts’ to run different formats of Store more efficiently.

SWL-PROFILER+ Matches store HR with Customer flow for best service. This ensure the ‘best matching’ of labour to customer demand.

SWL-T&A Collects work time data and generates an accurate output to payroll.

SWL-ESS Delivers Employee HR Self Service, “ESS”. Interactive solution enables Colleagues to manage their individual HR details & preferences via their phone or SMART devices including; Absence notification. Holiday requests, Extra Shift bidding, Check work times.

SWL-CCE Enables the Business to ask Customers questions and get answers NOW. Every trading hour, every day of the year, CCE enables SPAR to “engage” with customer on their “Shopping Experience” e.g. Today’s Service, Availability, Opening Hours, Range. www.swlgroup.com

SWL GROUP INTERNATIONAL Innovation House 8 Arden Court Arden Road Alcester Warwickshire B49 6HN

Tel: +44 (0)1789 768 760 Email: [email protected]

@swlgroup /swlgroup