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Client: Matalan
Project: Visual Academy
Brief:
Matalan asked Visual Thinking to develop a ‘Visual Academy’. The aim of the exercise was to improve the effectiveness, consistency and standards of store presentation and to provide a framework of effective visual merchandising and retail policy for use in all stores. Matalan was currently operating with a range of store formats, and there was a lack of clarity of ‘what good looks like’ in VM and retail standards across the business.
Solution:
The Visual Thinking Team developed a programme of two-day training workshops, run separately by job function. Delivered to area, store and field VM managers, the workshops were run from a ‘Centre of Excellence’ model store that had previously been set up to the required standard. Two workshops were run per area, delivered over a three month period.
Interactive and participative, the sessions incorporated ‘best practice’ examples, ‘show-and-tell’ and problem solving activities. Following the training, delegates took away a plan of action and practical assignments to implement back in their stores. A three day train-the-trainer session was also run for the client’s field visual managers to enable them to run the workshops as an ongoing programme.
Visual Thinking also created a comprehensive Visual Academy pack for use in stores countrywide. All senior and store manager groups are now trained in ‘what good looks like’, and a ‘model store mechanic’ has been established to maintain required standards. Stores undergo practical tests to assess effectiveness, with all stores having now completed the training process and signed-off as meeting the required standards.
